Preamble

[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair.]

DEATH OF A MEMBER.

Mr. SPEAKER made the following communication to the House:

I regret to have to inform the House of the death of Captain the Right Hon. David Euan Wallace, M.C., late Member for the Borough of Hornsey, and desire to express our sense of the loss we have sustained and our sympathy with the relatives.

NEW WRIT.

For the County of Dorset (Southern Division), in the room of the Right Hon. Robert Arthur James Cecil, commonly called Viscount Cranborne, called up to the House of Peers.—[Mr. James Stuart.]

PRIVATE BUSINESS.

CANNOCK URBAN DISTRICT COUNCIL BILL.

Read a Second time, and committed.

GREAT WESTERN RAILWAY (SUPERANNUA TION FUND) BILL.

Read a Second time, and referred to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills.

GREAT WESTERN RAILWAY (VARIATION OF DIRECTORS' QUALIFICATION) BILL.

To be read a Second time upon the 1st Sitting Day after 16th February.

KENT ELECTRIC POWER BILL.

To be read a Second time upon the 1st Sitting Day after 23rd February.

LONDON MIDLAND AND SCOTTISH RAILWAY BILL.

Read a Second time, and referred to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills.

RAILWAY CLEARING SYSTEM SUPERANNUA TION FUND CORPORATION BILL.

Read a Second time, and referred to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills.

SOUTHERN RAILWAY (SUPERANNUATION FUND) BILL.

Read a Second time, and referred to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills.

MINISTRY OF HEALTH PROVISIONAL ORDER (SHIPLEY) BILL.

Read the Third time, and referred to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills.

MINISTRY OF HEALTH PROVISIONAL ORDER (SHIPLEY) BILL.

Read a Second time, and referred to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills.

Mr. Leach: On a point of Order, Mr. Speaker. None of the Bills that have just been dealt with appear on our Order Paper. Can you tell me why?

Mr. Speaker: They are not on my Order Paper either, and I also would like to know why.

Oral Answers to Questions — TRADE AND COMMERCE.

SPORTS GOODS.

Sir Reginald Clarry: asked the President of the Board of Trade what arrangements he has now made with retail sports goods dealers and the Navy, Army, and Air Force Institutes for open and competitive equality in supplying Service Departments with their requirements; and is he aware of the growing difficulties in carrying on their businesses for the tax and ratepaying sports goods shopkeeper throughout the country by the fact they are shut out of one of the few present-day markets for their goods?

The President of the Board of Trade (Mr. Lyttelton): The supply of controlled articles such as sports goods to the Navy, Army, and Air Force Institutes is a matter which I have under discussion with the Service Departments, but it has not yet been possible to reach a decision.

Sir R. Clarry: What is the reason for the delay, and who is responsible for it?

Mr. Lyttelton: There have been changes on the Board.

WOVEN TEXTILES ORDER.

Major Lloyd: asked the President of the Board of Trade what the home trade quotas will be after 31st March for goods controlled under the Limitation of Supplies (Woven Textiles) Order?

Mr. Lyttelton: After consultation with the Minister of Supply, I have decided that because of increasing demands for essential war purposes the quotas for cotton, linen or silk piece goods and made-up goods must be reduced to 20 per cent. and the quota for rayon goods to 40 per cent.

EXPORT TRADE.

Mr. Liddall: asked the Prime Minister whether, in view in of the restricted opportunities for trade with foreign countries and as the Export Council working in collaboration with various Government Departments has reduced the Department of Overseas Trade and its Minister and Trade Commissioners to a position of desuetude, he will consider the amalgamation of the Department of Overseas Trade with the Board of Trade till after the war, and thereby avoid redundancy of staff and waste of energy.

The Prime Minister (Mr. Churchill): As the published figures indicate, the war has necessarily limited the volume of our exports, but export trade is still of the greatest importance as an essential part of our war effort. The difficulties which confront exporters are many and complex, and it is the function of the Department of Overseas Trade to assist exporters to overcome these difficulties. This entails a heavy burden of work on the Department, and particularly its overseas officers, as is demonstrated by the fact that the number of inquiries reaching the Department is as great as before the war. The Department works in the closest collaboration with the Board of Trade and the Export Council, of which body the Secretary of the Department of Overseas Trade is the Vice-Chairman. Special care is taken to ensure that there is no overlapping, and no advantage would result from the amalgamation suggested by my hon. Friend.

PREVENTION OF FRAUD (INVESTMENTS) ACT.

Mr. Liddall: asked the President of the Board of Trade whether he is aware that, owing to shortage of staff, he has been compelled to postpone three times the latest date for application for licences under the Prevention of Fraud Act until next March; and will he ask the Bar Council and the Law Society each to nominate now three of their members to

assist him to abolish the need for another postponement?

Mr. Lyttelton: No, Sir. I have received no serious complaints recently of the activities of share-pushers, and section 12 of the Prevention of Fraud (Investments) Act, which contains wide general provisions against fraud, is already in force. To enforce the licensing provisions would involve putting into force the other complicated provisions of the Act, and I do not think I could justify this in present circumstances. But if share-pushers again become active, which I regard as unlikely in war-time, I will put the full provisions of the Act into force as soon as possible.

Mr. Liddall: Is not my right hon. Friend aware that stock and share dealers are very much interested in the fixing of the appointed day, and that there is a general feeling that there should be no further delay?

Oral Answers to Questions — BRITISH ARMY.

INOCULATION.

Mr. Leach: asked the Secretary of State for War whether he is aware that the commanding officers-in-charge of a headquarters company of which he has been informed are intimidating rank and file who refuse inoculation with threats of stoppage of leave, proficiency pay, etc.; and will he take steps to put a stop to this practice?

The Secretary of State for War (Captain Margesson): I am having inquiries made and will inform my hon. Friend as soon as I have the necessary information.

SKILLED TRADESMEN.

Mr. Robert Gibson: asked the Secretary of State for War how many skilled engineers, and how many skilled capstan turners, respectively, are employed in the Army, and the Royal Army Ordinance Corps, respectively, solely for dishwashing and small fatigue purposes; and what steps he proposes to take to ensure that these skilled men are put to the work in which they can best help the war effort?

Captain Margesson: I cannot give any figures in reply to the first part of the Question, but all soldiers have to take their turn at duties of the kind mentioned. Every possible step is being taken to


make the best use in the Army of skilled men. Instructions were issued some months ago that any soldier with special qualifications who was not already mustered as a tradesman should submit particulars through his commanding officer to the War Office. Thousands of applications have been received, and large numbers of men either have been mustered as tradesmen or are now undergoing training at technical establishments. The scheme is being continued and extended, and any soldier with technical qualifications can apply for trade testing.

Mr. Gibson: Is my right hon. and gallant Friend aware that when a man is reduced on medical inspection from Category A to Category C, he is put on to fatigue duties that do not bring into play his skilled experience? Will the Minister take steps to see that when a man is so reduced in category he will be given the opportunity at once to be put on to work where he will be able to assist in the war effort?

Captain Margesson: That is what my answer said. I said that all soldiers have to take their turn at duties of the kind mentioned by the hon. Member, but that we are doing our best to muster tradesmen and that there have been thousands of applications for these specialised jobs.

Mr. Gibson: My Supplementary Question was rather directed to the cases of men who are reduced in medical category, because these men are then put continuously on such fatigue duties? Will the Minister look into that matter?

FOOD PRODUCTION.

Rear-Admiral Beamish: asked the Secretary of State for War what steps are being taken to make the utmost use of agricultural land and particularly of the gardens of houses now occupied by the Army; and whether such steps will include cropping and supervision of such areas by experts who can arrange for distribution and marketing of foodstuffs?

Captain Margesson: Agricultural officers have been appointed on the staffs of the War Office, commands, areas and districts to ensure the cultivation, so far as possible, of all land in military occupation and particularly to arrange that, when houses with gardens attached have been requisitioned, the soldier occupants should cultivate the gar-

dens if the owners cannot continue to do so. The bulk of the labour will be supplied by the troops, but a nucleus of trained men is being provided to give advice and to maintain cultivation where soldiers are withdrawn and not immediately replaced. Advances of cash are being made for the purchase of seeds and tools, and the expenditure incurred will be repaid from the proceeds of the sale of produce. As a general rule, the produce will be sold to the Navy, Army and Air Force Institutes. The fullest use is being made of the advice and co-operation of the local representatives of the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries throughout the country and with the War Agriculture Executive Committees. When land can best be cultivated by being let to local farmers and market gardeners, this is being done.

Rear-Admiral Beamish: Will the right hon. and gallant Gentleman bear in mind that, in view of the constant changes of military units, there is necessity for continuity of supervision and responsibility, otherwise this system may fail?

Captain Margesson: Yes, Sir.

PUBLIC RELATIONS OFFICER.

Mr. G. Strauss: asked the Secretary of State for War whether the Public Relations Officer of the War Office is a military or a civil appointment; and whether he will give the House the status and remuneration of the present occupant?

Captain Margesson: The appointment is a military appointment. The present holder is a colonel and is receiving the pay and allowances of a colonel serving at the War Office. These approximate in his case to £1,200 a year.

Mr. Strauss: May we take it that there has been no change in status as a result of the new occupancy?

Captain Margesson: None whatever.

DEPENDANTS' ALLOWANCES.

Mr. Parker: asked the Secretary of State for War whether he is aware that hardship is caused to the families of serving men as the children's allowances now paid cease at the 14th birthday and not at the end of the term they leave school, which is often many weeks later; and whether he will arrange for them to be extended to cover this period?

Captain Margesson: I think my hon. Friend is under some misapprehension. The allowances in respect of soldiers' children are, under existing regulations, continued after such children attain the age of 14 years so long as they are in whole-time attendance at a school, procided that the conditions governing the allowance otherwise continue to be fulfilled.

Mr. T. Smith: asked the Secretary of State for War whether he is aware that the mother of E. A. Eckersley, 1907614, Royal Engineers, has been informed by the Pay Office that an amount of 5s. per week which she receives from her son's employers from a fund raised from contributions by the employers and their work-people has to be taken into consideration in assessing the amount of her dependant's allowance; and whether this decision is in conformity with the regulations?

Captain Margesson: I am not aware of the particular case referred to. Dependants' allowance can be issued only in cases where a soldier's dependant is placed in circumstances of hardship through the soldier's inability to continue to make, after he joins the Colours, a contribution to the maintenance of the dependant on the same scale as before his enlistment. In order to determine whether hardship exists in any case, the resources of the dependant after the soldier joins the Colours are assessed in accordance with rules which were set out fully in the White Paper of March, 1940 (Cmd. 6186). Subject to the limitations there described, all sources of income in the dependant's household are taken into account in determining the eligibility of the dependant for an award.

Mr. Smith: Does my right hon. and gallant Friend appreciate that these contributions by employers and workmen are intended to be in addition to what they receive in the ordinary way? May I send particulars to my right hon. and gallant Friend?

Captain Margesson: Certainly, Sir.

Mr. Rhys Davies: Is the right hon. and gallant Gentleman aware that because the War Office takes into account ex-gratia payments made to serving men by some employers those employers are considering reducing such payments or stopping them altogether?

RATIONS.

Lieut.-Colonel Sir Thomas Moore: asked the Secretary of State for War the weight of the respective daily issues to members of His Majesty's Forces of the various rationed commodities allowed to civilians?

Captain Margesson: As the answer contains a number of figures, I will, with my hon. and gallant Friend's permission, circulate it in the OFFICIAL REPORT.

Sir T. Moore: Do these figures show any marked discrimination between the amount of food allowed to the Civil Defence Services, which are in the war all the time, compared with soldiers, who are actually only preparing for war?

Captain Margesson: My hon. and gallant Friend had better look at the figures.

Following is the answer:


—
Daily issues.


Men.
Women.



Oz.
Oz.


Meat
8
6


Sugar
2½
2


Butter
—
½


Margarine
1½
1


Tea
⅜
⅜


Bacon
12/7
11/7

Sir T. Moore: asked the Secretary of State for War the authority which decides the composition and quantities of the rations issued to the Forces, and on whose advice this decision is taken?

Captain Margesson: The responsibility for the composition of the various Army ration scales rests with the Army Council, who are advised by the military medical authorities, military and civilian catering advisers, various scientific and other bodies, and the Ministry of Food. The scales vary according to country, nationality and the availability and suitability of different types of food, and are designed to maintain the necessary standard of health and military efficiency under all conditions of service. For native troops, the best local advice is taken.

Sir T. Moore: While a certain amount of food is necessary to feed one individual, would not any housewife tell us that to


feed 500 men requires far less food per man, and will that be borne in mind in the question of rationing?

Captain Margesson: The Army ration has been reduced from time to time, and I do not exclude from my mind that process being continued.

Viscountess Astor: Will my right hon. and gallant Friend consider putting a thoroughly competent house manager in this section of the Army?

FARM DAMAGE.

Major Sir Edward Cadogan: asked the Secretary of State for War whether, in the national interest, he will circulate to troops operating over the countryside instructions as to how to avoid unnecessary damage to woods, fields and farm buildings, besides danger to cattle, for which quite unintentionally they are sometimes responsible?

Captain Margesson: A pamphlet containing appropriate instructions on the subject, and prepared in consultation with the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries and the Department of Agriculture for Scotland, has been widely distributed in the Army. In addition, commanding officers are instructed to take every possible step to minimise damage and to impress on all ranks their responsibility in this matter. Further, compensation officers, with a thorough knowledge of farming requirements, have been appointed to corps, divisions and brigades, and they act as advisers to commanders and give lectures to the troops. They are also to give lectures to Officer Cadet Training Units.

BRITISH PRISONERS OF WAR.

Major-General Sir Alfred Knox: asked the Secretary of State for War whether he is satisfied with the use of the port of Marseilles as a landing place for parcels for our prisoners of war or whether he is considering another route?

Captain Margesson: The use of Marseilles has been satisfactory, and there has not, so far, been any appreciable congestion or delay there. No other port is being considered at present. Parcels are still going by rail via Lisbon, Madrid and Basle, and an experimental route has been inaugurated via Lisbon, Madrid, Occupied France and Cologne.

Sir A. Knox: asked the Secretary of State for war (1) what is the number of parcels for prisoners of war that have been moved from Lisbon to Marseilles;

(2) whether he will give the total number of food parcels and the total number of clothing parcels handed over by the British Red Cross Society to the General Post Office from 1st July till the latest date available; the total number of parcels of each category passed over the German frontier in the same period; and can he state where the balance of the parcels now lies?

Captain Margesson: During the months July, 1940, to January, 1941, inclusive, 714,800 food parcels and 29,400 clothing parcels were handed over to the General Post Office. During the same period, 151,711 food parcels and 1,122 clothing parcels have been forwarded from Geneva to the camps in Germany. As regards the balance and on such information as is available at present, I can give my hon. and gallant Friend the following figures for parcels of all kinds:

Despatched from Basle to the camps in Germany up to 4th October, 1940
85,000


Lost through enemy action
16,000


At Marseilles
58,000


En route—Lisbon to Marseilles
63,000


En route—United Kingdom to Marseilles
27,000


At Lisbon
174,000


En route—United Kingdom to Lisbon
165,000

Sir A. Knox: Will the parcels that are now at Lisbon be sent to Marseilles or across Spain?

Captain Margesson: We shall use whatever routes are open to us, either Marseilles, according to the number of ships we can employ, or, if some of the parcels can be sent across Spain, that route will be used also. We want to get the parcels on their way as soon as possible.

Mr. Lawson: Has the Minister any information at his disposal as to whether the ordinary rank and file in the prisoners' camps are receiving the parcels that are sent?

Captain Margesson: I am always willing to give to the House information on the number of parcels that are actually re


ceived. I recognise how anxious the House is about this matter. Whenever I get information I am only too willing to give it to the House.

Mr. Lawson: Is the Minister aware that it is stated that in many cases the rank and file are working in mines in various parts of the country? Has he any means of getting to know whether the parcels reach these men?

Captain Margesson: I have not that information at the moment. If the hon. Member will put down a Question on the matter, I will do my best to see whether I can give him the information.

M.S. "ETTRICK" (ALIENS, TREATMENT).

Mr. Mander: asked the Secretary of State for War whether consideration has now been given to the statement presented to Mr. Paterson by an internee during his visit to Canada containing serious charges with respect to the treatment of aliens on board the M.S. "Ettrick" on the way to Canada; and whether he will cause an inquiry to be held?

Captain Margesson: Neither my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary nor I has yet received the statement referred to, but inquiry is being made of the internees who have returned from Canada, and I shall be glad if my hon. Friend will let me have any information in his possession.

Mr. Mander: I should be glad to do so.

Oral Answers to Questions — SCOTLAND.

DIPHTHERIA (IMMUNISATION).

Mr. Leach: asked the Secretary of State for Scotland why, in the statement on diphtheria immunisation drawn up by the sub-committee of the Scientific Advisory Committee of the Scottish Board of Health, no figures were given regarding diphtheria in immunised and unimmunised children in Edinburgh, seeing that immunisation has been practised in that city from the time it was first introduced?

The Joint Under-Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. Westwood): I am informed that the figures desired by the hon. Member are not available for the City of Edinburgh.

EDUCATION FUND.

Mr. Sloan: asked the Secretary of State for Scotland whether, since the method of reckoning the amount paid by the Exchequer into the Scottish Education Fund is based on the assumption that the educational expenditure of Scot-lands bears a fixed relationship to the educational expenditure of Great Britain as a whole, and since because of recent events this fixed relationship has been interrupted, he will take steps to avoid injustice to Scottish education authorities through the operation of the so-called eleven-eightieths principle?

Mr. Westwood: My right hon. Friend is not aware of any circumstances which make it desirable to disturb the method of calculating Scottish education grants which was embodied in the Education (Scotland) Act, 1918. The effects of this financial arrangement are under constant review.

Mr. Sloan: Will my hon. Friend give an undertaking that Scottish local authorities will in no way suffer in consequence of the diminishing expenditure of education authorities during the war?

Mr. Westwood: I am afraid that that question is based on the wrong assumption that educational expenditure is decreasing in England, whereas my advice is to the contrary.

LOCAL ELECTIONS.

Mr. R. Gibson: asked the Secretary of State for Scotland whether he has considered the resolution, passed by the Greenock Trades Council, regarding proposed amendments to the Local Elections and Register of Electors (Temporary Provisions) Act, 1939, a copy of which resolution was intimated to him by Mr. Samuel McLaren the secretary; and whether he has any statement to make on the subject?

Mr. Westwood: My right hon. Friend has considered the resolution referred to, but for the reasons indicated when the Act of 1940 was passing through Parliament, I am unable to hold out a prospect of further legislation as suggested. I regret that in one case since the issue of the recent circular the truce has not been observed, and my right hon. Friend is in communication on the subject with the local authority concerned.

Mr. Gibson: Is my hon. Friend aware that lack of good faith in carrying out this arrangement has a ruinous effect on cooperation in Civil Defence matters? Will he bring that to the notice of those interested in it?

Mr. Westwood: I am aware of the need for local authorities to play the game, as the great parties of the State are playing the game in national affairs.

RIVER FORTH (PREVENTION OF POLLUTION).

Mr. Woodburn: asked the Secretary of State for Scotland whether his attention has been called to the report of the Forth District Salmon Fishery Board complaining of the pollution of the River Forth, causing high mortality among fish; and whether he can announce any measures to remedy this nuisance and prevent the consequent loss of food?

Mr. Westwood: I am aware of the report referred to. I am advised that the mortality in 1940 did not differ materially from that in previous seasons. In any case it would not be practicable under present conditions to undertake the extensive works which would be required to prevent pollution.

Mr. Mathers: Is the Minister aware of the difficulty, under present legislation, of dealing with pollution? May it not be possible to take advantage of the Bill on the Order Paper, the Land Drainage (Scotland) Bill, to obtain further powers?

Mr. Westwood: I am not sure that the Bill referred to will enable us, even because of its Title, to deal with a problem of that kind, but there were difficulties, and they were being considered by the Rivers Pollution Prevention Committee, which carried out extensive inquiries as far as the River Forth was concerned, but which, because of the outbreak of war, had no opportunity of presenting its report.

Oral Answers to Questions — COAL INDUSTRY.

PRICE.

Mr. Culverwell: asked the Secretary for Mines whether he is aware of the continual increases in the price of coal to public utilities; and what steps he is taking to prevent further increases?

The Secretary for Mines (Mr. David Grenfell): I would refer the hon. Member to the reply I gave to the hon. Member for Cheltenham (Mr. Lipson) on 5th February.

Mr. Culverwell: Is the Minister aware that this progressive increase in the cost of coal to public utilities is increasing the cost of production and is affecting the cost of living all over the country, which is the best way of bringing on inflation? Does he not think it is time for some modification of the sliding scale governing miners' wages to be considered?

Mr. Grenfell: It would he quite improper to suggest that miners should not be given the same allowances to meet the increased cost of living as is given to other workers, and that is all that is taking place.

Mr. Culverwell: Is the Minister taking no steps whatever to prevent this increase in the cost of coal, which affects industry and the cost of living and so leads to a progressive rise in both cases?

Mr. Grenfell: The hon. Member should know that the cost of coal is rising less in proportion to many other major commodities in the country.

Mr. Neil Maclean: Is the Minister aware that a lot of the coal being submitted at these present costs to the consumer is mixed with a lot of stone which will not burn?

Mr. Grenfell: Unfortunately, all coal is not perfect, but I think on the whole the quality is good.

Mr. James Griffiths: Does the Minister recall that for 10 years public utilities obtained coal at competitive prices and that in those days they did not comparatively reduce the prices of their services to the public?

Mr. Grenfell: I am afraid that conditions in the industry in regard to prices and wages would be reduced if it were left to depend on the public utility companies.

SUPPLIES, KIDDERMINSTER AND STOURPORT.

Sir John Wardlaw-Milne: asked the Secretary for Mines whether he is aware that after some improvement there is again delay in the supply of coal to


Kidderminster and Stourport; that certain wagons which left South Wales on 24th December have not yet arrived and that the position is made more acute by reason of the necessity of providing for a number of refugees from bombed areas; and what steps he is taking to improve conditions in this area?

Mr. Grenfell: I am aware that special difficulties are still being experienced in the supply of coal to certain areas, including Stourport and Kidderminster, and arrangements have recently been made which should result in a substantial increase in coal traffic to those areas from the Midland (Amalgamated) District. As a result of special measures taken during the last few weeks, railway deliveries from South Wales have also been considerably increased.

Sir J. Wardlaw-Milne: When the Minister says that there have been considerable increases in the delivery of coal wagons, presumably by quicker movement, does he consider that a coal wagon which started on 24th December from South Wales, and only reached the Midlands on about 28th January, is acceleration?

Mr. Grenfell: My hon. Friend refers to a coal wagon; perhaps he would be easier in his own mind if he knew that 300,000 wagons of coal are moved each week in this country. To impute the tardiness of delivery of one coal wagon to a body generally responsible is really making a mountain out of a molehill.

Sir J. Wardlaw-Milne: Does the Minister really consider his reply absolutely fair? It must be quite clear to him and to the House that the wagon to which I referred in my Supplementary Question was given as an example. I can tell him of hundreds of wagons which have been delayed for long periods. There is no doubt that there is a very strong public feeling in some parts of the country against the continual delay in the transport of coal.

Mr. Grenfell: I am quite ready to answer any strong public feeling, but I feel that it should be well informed.

Mr. De la Bère: Is the Minister aware that Evesham and Pershore are both suffering from the same difficulty?

Mr. Grenfell: I am very sorry about Evesham and Pershore, but we are up against local difficulties which cannot be immediately overcome. We are doing better than we did, but there is still room for improvement.

AFFORESTATION.

Mr. Liddall: asked the right hon. and gallant Member for Rye, as representing the Forestry Commissioners, whether any deer-forest land in the Inverness district and in the Black Mountain area is suitable for afforestation; and whether he is interesting himself in getting the land planted by private owners, with or without State assistance or, alternatively, by the Forestry Commission?

Colonel Sir George Courthope (Forestry Commissioner): Some deer-forest land in Inverness-shire is suitable for afforestation, the Forestry Commissioners owning 53,000 acres of such land. Black Mount deer forest was offered to the Commissioners, but, as it contains only a small proportion of land suitable for afforestation, the area was not acquired. The Commissioners are interested in getting any suitable land planted by private owners and provide grants for planting.

Mr. Thorne: Have any trees been blown down by enemy action?

Mr. Maclean: Will the right hon. and gallant Gentleman see to it that land suitable for growing food under the Forestry Commission will be used for that object?

Oral Answers to Questions — CIVIL DEFENCE.

INTERNEES, CANADA.

Mr. G. Strauss: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he will make representations to the Canadian Government to remove elsewhere the anti-Fascist Italians in S camp, in view of the fact that the great majority of internees in this camp are Fascists?

The Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Peake): I have no knowledge that the majority of the internees in this camp are Fascists, and I shall be glad if my hon. Friend will furnish me with the information which he has to this effect.

Mr. G. Strauss: asked the Home Secretary whether he will make representations to the Canadian Government with a view to a reorganisation of Camp R for aliens sent to Canada from this country, in view of the fact that there are approximately 1,000 Nazi seamen in this camp and 100 Jewish refugees, and that a promise was given by the commander of the camp in September that the refugees would be sent elsewhere?

Mr. Peake: I would refer my hon. Friend to the first part of the reply which I gave to my right hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Mr. Wedgwood) on 28th January.

AIR-RAID WARDENS

Mr. Brooke: asked the Home Secretary what is the present position as regards reservation of full-time air-raid wardens; and what steps he is taking to ensure the permanent maintenance of a nucleus of fit and fully active men for this service locally, in view of the claims of military service on the one hand and war work in industry on the other.

The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Home Security: (Mr. Mabane): In order to make the best use of man-power it was always intended that the wardens' service should be recruited mainly from men and women giving part-time service, and that the men should either be over military age or be men whose primary occupation was reserved. In this way youth and maturity would be properly combined in a service in which judgment is no less important than vigour. My right hon. Friend the Minister of Labour and National Service has agreed to the deferment of the calling up of full-time wardens in key positions over thirty, on the individual merits of particular cases. In general, where there is an undue proportion of full-time wardens liable to be called up for military service in the near future and the substitution of older men or women cannot be speedily effected, my right hon. Friend proposes to invite the Minister of Labour and National Service to agree to the necessary periods of deferment.

INDOOR SHELTERS (GOVERNMENT PROPOSALS).

Mr. Simmonds (By Private Notice): asked the Home Secretary whether he can now make any statement in regard

to the provision of indoor shelters; and whether he can say whether any change is proposed in the standard of eligibility for the provision, at the public expense, of these or other shelters?

The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Herbert Morrison): Yes, Sir. The course of events in the past few months has given strong emphasis to the advantages of shelter within the home. It achieves not only dispersal, but warmth and dryness, and it avoids the discomfort of leaving home at night and the dislocation of family life. Experience of the effect of the bombing has shown that houses afford more protection than was at one time supposed and that the risks of installing indoor shelters are less than was formerly believed. We have, therefore, turned to the question of designing a shelter suitable for installation indoors which should afford protection against the consequences of being pinned under the debris of a house brought down by a bomb exploding near it. We have reached a stage where I am justified in informing the House that we have succeeded in achieving a satisfactory design for a shelter of this kind, particulars of which, with the Speaker's permission, I will make available in the Tea Room. It is designed for installation on the lowest floor of a house of two or three storeys and will accommodate two adults and one older child or two younger children. It will not be practicable in the early stages of distribution to cover anything like the whole country and I have accordingly, in consultation with the Regional Commissioners, selected a number of areas to which priority will be given. These have been selected with due regard to shelter needs based on recent experience and estimated vulnerability: for obvious reasons I do not propose to give their names, but steps will be taken for suitable local announcements at a later stage. Information will then be given as to the procedure to be followed by those desiring to obtain these shelters, and in the meantime no application by members of the public for shelters should be made or can be entertained.

Mr. Simmonds: Will my right hon. Friend bear in mind that one of the least satisfactory aspects of the issue of the Anderson shelter was that even in the most vulnerable areas it was not possible


to purchase such shelters until the whole of the free issue of the shelters had been delivered? Will he therefore see, in the case of these indoor shelters, that in the most vulnerable areas a percentage of those which become available shall be purchasable by those outside the income limits for the free issue?

Mr. Morrison: My hon. Friend will realise that that might involve many administrative complications, but I should certainly wish to do that.

Mr. Kenneth Lindsay: Are these shelters now in production?

Mr. Morrison: No, Sir, not yet, but they will be, I hope, round about the end of March.

Sir Herbert Williams: Can the right hon. Gentleman say anything about the materials of which they will be made?

Mr. Morrison: There will be a considerable steel element.

Viscountess Astor: Is it not true that the authorities in some of the most vulnerable areas had to send back Anderson shelters because the people would not take them, and is not that one of the reasons why we have had so much trouble?

Mr. Morrison: If there is anyone who does not want his Anderson shelter I should be very glad to have it back.

Mr. Peat: Has the right hon. Gentleman any statement to make on the subject of eligibility for these shelters?

Mr. Morrison: Yes, Sir, the income limit has been considered. Broadly speaking, people got a free issue of the Anderson shelter if the income was below £250. With the concurrence of my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer, that limit has now been increased to £350.

Mr. Cluse: Will it be necessary for a tenant to obtain consent from a landlord before the shelters can be erected?

Mr. Morrison: No, Sir.

AIR-RAID PRECAUTIONS.

Mr. Simmonds: asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Works and Buildings what organisation exists within his Ministry to deal with air-raid precautions?

Mr. Whiteley (Comptroller of the Household): I have been asked to reply. The Ministry of Works and Buildings is responsible for the provision of shelter accommodation in civil Government buildings and for the supply of firefighting, first-aid and black-out equipment; it provides rescue and clearance, decontamination and demolition and repair parties for all civil Government buildings in London and in certain provincial centres; training in fire-fighting is provided for Government staffs generally in the Ministry's instructional schools. In addition, for the buildings occupied by the Ministry's own staffs, wardens, firefighters and first-aid personnel have been recruited and trained and arrangements for the observance of the Fire Precautions Orders of the Minister of Home Security are being made with all possible speed.

Mr. Simmonds: Is there in the Ministry a professional organisation for dealing with air-raid precautions in the buildings which the Ministry are constructing and will construct?

Mr. Whiteley: I cannot say that offhand, but I will make inquiries.

Oral Answers to Questions — FOOD SUPPLIES.

EGGS.

Mr. Simmonds: asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Food whether he is aware that the present policy of his Department is making the production of eggs unremunerative; and what steps he is taking to alter this?

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Food (Major Lloyd George): No, Sir. The maximum prices for home-produced eggs are regarded as generally remunerative for producers, but it is recognised that poultry keepers who are dependent on purchased feeding-stuffs will have to reduce their flocks very considerably below pre-war level owing to the shortage of supplies of feeding-stuffs.

Mr. Simmonds: On the other hand, is it not regarded by many poultry keepers that the present prices they may charge are unremunerative, and is it not exceedingly important that the Ministry of Food should encourage eggs on to the market and make the keeping of poultry remunerative, particularly to those who can use swill and not other feeding-stuffs?

Major Lloyd George: The price that has been fixed for eggs has been based on the increased costs which poultry have incurred, taking into consideration the average of the last three years before the war.

Mr. Simmonds: Will the hon. and gallant Gentleman watch the availability of these eggs and see whether in fact his policy is keeping eggs on the market?

BUTTER RATION (INVALIDS).

Mr. Parker: asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Food whether a larger ration of butter can be provided for patients suffering from tuberculosis as the present two ounces is insufficient for nourishment purposes?

Major Lloyd George: The Food Rationing (Special Diets) Advisory Committee of the Medical Research Council is considering the position of invalids, including tuberculosis patients, in the light of the present food restrictions, and I will communicate with my hon. Friend as soon as the review is completed.

BANANAS.

Mr. James Hall (for Mr. Sorensen): asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Food, whether, in view of the recent arrival of a consignment of bananas, similar small quantities are likely to be despatched when cargo space is not otherwise fully utilised; and whether he proposes to take any steps to control their distribution and sale when available in small lots?

Major Lloyd George: No, Sir. The present demand for shipping space for more essential purposes is unlikely to allow of any further shipments of bananas. The second part of the Question, therefore, does not arise.

Mr. Hall: Do I understand from the hon. and gallant Gentleman that no steps will be taken to provide for the transport of bananas?

Major Lloyd George: Yes, if it is possible, but it is not likely to be possible in many cases in the future. It is a matter for the authorities at the port of loading. If there should happen to be a little cargo space available, they would rather load bananas than waste it, but it is most unlikely in present conditions that such a situation will arise.

Mr. Hall: Do I understand that if there is that possibility, the Minister of Food will control the supply?

Major Lloyd George: I could not say that. It does not follow that bananas would be the best thing to put into the space available.

Mr. Thorne: In the event of a load of bananas being sent to one particular individual, what can be done to ensure their proper distribution?

Major Lloyd George: In the particular case under discussion there were only very small supplies. In such a case there is no possibility of securing equitable distribution. There were not nearly enough to go round.

ICELAND AND FAROE ISLANDS (CORRESPONDENCE CENSORSHIP).

Mr. R. Gibson: asked the Minister of Information whether, to obviate the delay in censoring correspondence from Iceland and Faröe Islands, he will take steps to remove the locus of this censorship from Liverpool to Edinburgh?

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Information (Mr. Harold Nicolson): There is no avoidable delay at Liverpool in the censoring of correspondence from Iceland and the Faröe Islands, and no advantage would be gained by transferring this censorship to Edinburgh.

Mr. Gibson: What does the hon. Gentleman mean by "avoidable delay"? Is he aware that when goods come to Leith from these countries the documents accompanying them do not reach the consignees till weeks afterwards? Will he look into the matter from that point of view?

Mr. Nicolson: I will, certainly.

Mr. Gibson: Is the hon. Gentleman also aware that there is available linguistic talent in Edinburgh?

QUESTIONS TO MINISTERS.

Mr. De la Bère: asked the Prime Minister whether he can give the House an assurance that, with the exception of the necessary consideration of security in war time, the recent practice by certain


Ministers of the Crown of answering Questions which have appeared on the Order Paper by writing to the Member concerned and not circulating the reply, shall be discontinued?

The Prime Minister: Apart from the considerations of national safety to which my hon. Friend refers, there is no intention of departing from the well-established practice whereby answers to Questions are circulated in the OFFICIAL REPORT. There are cases, however, where the matter is not of general interest or importance, or the information asked for is detailed and not immediately available. In these cases a reply by letter is, I think, not without precedent. Even so, it has always been open to any hon. Member to ask for the Answer to be circulated in the OFFICIAL REPORT or placed in the Library for reference.

Mr. Dc la Bère: Will the right hon. Gentleman have the answer given to the hon. Member for West Birmingham (Mr. Higgs) recently in connection with the appointment of Mr. Michael Arlen circulated, as it is of great interest to Members of Parliament for the Midland Region?

The Prime Minister: Certainly, if it is asked for.

Mr. Mander: Is it not the case that a Written Answer was given on the subject?

Mr. De la Bère: Is it not a fact that that answer was not specific?

INVASION SIGNAL.

Mr. Wedgwood: asked the Prime Minister what exactly is to be the alarm signal for invasion; whether anything is to precede the church bells, especially in London; and whether those in the Services or civilians are to receive any general advice as to action or inaction, whether by day or night, whether at work or at home.

The Prime Minister: My right hon. Friend may be sure that these matters are not neglected, but I hardly think that they are conveniently dealt with at the present moment by Question and Answer in the House.

Mr. Wedgwood: The right hon. Gentleman realises, I hope, that it is

urgently important that civilians as well as military people should know what the signal would be?

The Prime Minister: At the proper moment that information will be imparted.

Mr. Thorne: Will the right hon. Gentleman consider the advisability of broadcasting as soon as he knows that there is an invasion?

The Prime Minister: I have no doubt that some public comment may be made about it.

PEACE AIMS.

Mr. Mander: asked the Prime Minister whether he will provide facilities for the discussion of the Motion in the name of the hon. Member for East Wolverhampton on the subject of peace aims in view of the widespread public interest on this subject?

[That in the opinion of this House the effective propagation of the allied peace aims throughout the world would be a powerful weapon in assisting to win the war; that those terms should include the restoration of the freedom of all peoples over-run by Nazi or Fascist aggression during recent years; the provision of food to Continental nations immediately enemy arms are laid down and occupied territory evacuated, no negotiations with the present régimes in Germany and Italy; opportunities for the German and Italian people to choose for themselves whatever form of self-government they think fit; the setting up of a world organisation possessing such military force as will prevent further acts of aggression with suitable machinery for the peaceful settlement of international disputes through conciliation or third party judgment, and for the promotion of the economic unity of the world and the development of its resources for the benefit of all; the removal of unemployment, under-nourishment, bad housing and the lack of educational opportunities so that all races and creeds may live together in peace, liberty and security, enjoying the good things of life, both spiritual and physical and rendering service in return.]

The Prime Minister: The terms of the Motion standing in the name of my hon. Friend illustrate the very large measure of comprehension of British peace aims


which prevails in this country and elsewhere. I do not think there is the slightest need for a Debate on this subject at present.

Mr. Mander: May we take it that the Prime Minister will see no objection to a Member taking such opportunities as are available to initiate a short Debate on the subject?

The Prime Minister: Not at all. This is a free country.

Mr. Mander: I beg to give notice that I will raise the matter on the Adjournment.

Oral Answers to Questions — NATIONAL FINANCE.

BANK DEPOSITS (INTEREST).

Mr. De la Bère: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether, in connection with the rise in deposits at the clearing banks which has taken place, and is continuing, he can state approximately the percentage or amount of these deposits upon which the clearing banks are not paying any interest to depositors; and whether he can state the amount or approximate percentage on which they are paying interest at the rate of 10s. per cent.?

The Chancellor of the Exchequer (Sir Kingsley Wood): I regret that this information is not available.

Mr. De la Bère: Is it not a fact that in the large majority of cases the interest paid to depositors by the banks does not exceed 10s. per cent.? Why should the banks make a charge of 5 per cent. to agricultural borrowers? Is my right hon. Friend aware that agricultural production has been handicapped by the excessive charges to agricultural borrowers? Why does not the Treasury take power to insist that banks should reduce their rate of interest to agricultural borrowers in their time of need in war?

Sir K. Wood: The Minister of Agriculture and I have given many answers on that subject.

Mr. De la Bère: Is my right hon. Friend aware that he has never given a satisfactory one?

EXCESS PROFITS (COLD STORES).

Mr. Robertson: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether his atten-

tion has been drawn to a scheme for the control of cold stores, whereby it is proposed to divert excess and other profits from the Exchequer; and does he contemplate extending this procedure to all other industries?

Sir K. Wood: I am having inquiries made regarding the scheme for the control of cold stores to which my hon. Friend has drawn my attention. As soon as they are complete, I will communicate with him.

Mr. Robertson: Is it not a fact that I drew the Chancellor's attention to this matter six weeks ago, and does he realise that the situation does not warrant the use of drastic emergency powers to override major Acts of Parliament without debate in this House?

Sir K. Wood: I will look into what my hon. Friend says.

BANK CREDITS.

Mr. De la Bère: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he will publish a memorandum setting out the powers conferred on the banks for the creation of credits throughout the country as the impression that the banks are able to create costless credit is hindering our war effort?

Sir K. Wood: My hon. Friend's Question is, I think, based on a misapprehension, for no powers of the kind suggested have been conferred on the banks. Any impression such as that to which he refers in the latter part of his Question is, of course, erroneous.

Mr. De la Bère: My right hon. Friend would not disagree with me that purchasing power, newly created to finance the community and based on the Government credit, should not bear more than the most nominal rate of interest?

Sir K. Wood: I do not disagree with my hon. Friend any more than I can help.

Mr. De la Bère: Then my right hon. Friend does agree that it should not bear more than a nominal rate of interest?

Sir K. Wood: Not necessarily.

Mr. Craven-Ellis: In view of the widespread misinformed opinion about the financial system which is undermining the capitalist system, will my right hon.


Friend call the Governor of the Bank of England to the Bar of the House to make a statement?

Sir K. Wood: No, Sir; I think I should prefer to rest on the pamphlet which my hon. Friend has issued on the subject.

Mr. De la Bère: Surely if there is nothing to hide, there is nothing to fear?

ESTATE DUTY.

Sir Adam Maitland: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer to what extent totalities in casualities by enemy action have tended to show the need for amendment of the law in regard to the incidence of Estate Duty; and whether measures have been, or will be, taken to prevent undue hardships?

Sir K. Wood: My hon. Friend will not expect me to anticipate my Budget statement.

RESTAURANT AND CLUB MEALS (TAXATION).

Mr. Woodburn: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether, with the double view of discouraging extravagant consumption and of increasing revenue, he is prepared to consider a tax of 6d. on all meals in public restaurants, hotels, clubs, etc., costing over 4s., is. on meals over 6s., and 2s. on meals over 8s., and so on?

Sir K. Wood: I have noted my hon. Friend's suggestion, but he will not, of course, expect me to anticipate the Budget statement.

FOREIGN CURRENCY REGULATIONS.

Mr. Pethick-Lawrence: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer, whether his attention has been called to a recent case in which an individual was convicted of an offence against the Defence (Finance) Regulations for arranging for his wife to receive funds in Canada from a person for whose benefit he agreed to make a sterling payment in this country; and whether lie is satisfied that the regulations are adequate to prevent this and similar types of abuse?

Sir K. Wood: I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for having put this Question, which gives me an opportunity of making a general statement on the position. Every resident who goes outside the sterling area, otherwise than on national service or on

business of national importance, is required before going to sign a declaration that he will not have any funds remitted, either directly or indirectly, from this country for his maintenance abroad, and will not seek to divert dollar income which would have been surrendered to the Treasury had he remained in this country. So far as I am aware, the Regulations are adequate to prevent any attempts to evade these stipulations, and I am advised that it is an offence—for which heavy penalties are laid down—for a resident in this country to utilise foreign currency which he should surrender for the maintenance of his wife or family outside the sterling area, or to procure foreign currency for this purpose either by promising repayment at a later date (e.g. when the currency restrictions are lifted) or by undertaking to make a payment in this country on behalf of a resident abroad or by other similar devices. I would emphasise that such arrangements deprive the nation of currency assets, notwithstanding the fact that at first glance no money appears to leave the country. I need hardly say these provisions will be most strictly enforced.

CHINA (CURRENCY).

Sir John Wardlaw-Milne: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he can make a statement on the currency position in Shanghai and the Yangtze basin, having regard to the competition of the fapi (Chinese national currency), the extensive note issue of the Japanese military authorities, the Huahsing notes issued by a Japanese-controlled bank in Shanghai, and the new notes recently issued by the Nanking Puppet Government; and what are the reactions on foreign trade of these four conflicting currencies in the same district?

The Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs (Mr. Butler): My right hon. Friend is aware that the different currencies mentioned by my hon. Friend are circulating in Central China, the latest addition being the note issue of the Central Reserve Bank established by the Japanese sponsored regime at Nanking. It is too early to forecast what effect the latter will have on the currency and trade situation, but every attempt to supplant the national currency of China cannot but do some further harm to the interests of all countries trading with China.

UNITED STATES ECONOMIC MISSION.

Mr. Mander: asked the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies the purpose and scope of the mission recently sent to the British Virgin Islands; whether he will give an assurance that the inhabitants will be informed and consulted before any decision is taken; and to what extent it is hoped to develop economic relations with the island of St. Thomas?

The Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies (Mr. George Hall): I presume that the hon. Member alludes to the United States Economic Mission, headed by Mr. C. W. Taussig, which visited the Virgin Islands in the course of its tour of the British West Indian Colonies. The object of the Mission was to study social and economic conditions in the British West Indies in order to assist them in considering similar problems in the American islands. There was no question of any proposals or decisions, and the second and third parts of the Question do not therefore arise in this connection.

PARLIAMENTARY CANDIDATES (SELECTION).

The following Question stood upon the Order Paper in the name of Mr. GALLACHER:

36. To ask the Prime Minister whether, in view of the present system whereby candidates for this House are too often chosen because they possess money, or such qualifications as a union ticket, in both cases without regard to personal qualification, he is prepared to set up a committee to inquire into the composition of the personnel of Members of this House?

Mr. Gallacher: This Question as it appears on the Order Paper is not as I drafted it. I asked whether, in view of the statement made by the Under-Secretary of State for Air that there are too many Members in this House, etc.

The Prime Minister: I see no need to set up such a committee. If it were set up, it would certainly have to inquire, among other things, into the evils of the selection of candidates who might be mere pawns and utensils in the hands of foreign organisations.

Mr. Gallacher: I want to ask the Prime Minister whether he is not aware that the speech made by the Under-Secretary of State for Air, coupled with the statement of the hon. Member for East Aberdeen (Mr. Boothby) that "we all know what is going on in this House," and the fact that the Prime Minister's own immediate colleagues have continually referred to Members on the other side as "Yes men—

Mr. Speaker: The hon. Member cannot make a speech at Question Time.

Mr. Gallacher: On a point of Order. I want to ask a Question.

Mr. Speaker: No point of Order arises. The hon. Member was making a speech, and I called him to Order.

Later

Mr. Gallacher: On a point of Order. I am very anxious that this Question should be corrected. The Question that I put down was:
to ask the Prime Minister whether, in view of the statement made by the Under-Secretary for Air that candidates for this House are too often,
etc. The Question as it appears on the Paper gives the impression that it is I who am making the statement regarding Members of the House.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. Member must not read the original Question that he sent in.

Mr. Gallacher: If a Members puts a Question relating to a statement made by another Member, is it correct to turn it into a statement made by himself?

Mr. Speaker: The hon. Member must remember that I am responsible for the form in which a Question which he hands in appears on the Paper. He is not entitled to read to the House his original Question in the form in which he handed it in.

Mr. Silverman: Further to that point of Order. If the effect of a correction were to impute to the Member who put a Question something which he did not desire should be imputed to him and for which he was not responsible, would that not be an unfortunate result?

Mr. Speaker: The hon. Member could take his Question off the Paper if it were in a form which he did not like.

PERSONAL EXPLANATION.

Mr. Mander: I desire to make a short personal statement. In the Debate upon the Conduct of a Member which took place on 28th January I made a reference to certain evidence given by the hon. Member for East Aberdeen (Mr. Boothby) before the Select Committee. In connection with that I have received a letter from him. It has appeared in the Press, but it seems to me that, owing to its nature, it ought to be on the records of this House for future reference, and with your permission, Mr. Speaker, I should like to read it:
I have read with careful attention your observations in the Debate on the Conduct of a Member in the House of Commons last Tuesday. I hasten to assure you that the passages in my final speech to the Select Committee to which you referred dealt solely with the question of the obligations of Members of Parliament with regard to disclosure; and that I was making no charges, either of a general or of a specific character, against the integrity of any Member. I had in mind such questions as the disclosure of an interest in a trade or industry, or a shareholding in a company, and the difference which has hitherto been made between public and private companies—upon which there appear to be no clear precedents or rulings. It seems to me that there must inevitably be a somewhat wider application of the obligation to disclose personal interests in the case of a Minister of the Crown than in that of a private Member, by reason of the different functions they discharge. But I would like to make it quite plain that I was not suggesting that any different standards of conduct should be laid down, nor was it my intention to cast the slightest reflection either upon the House as such, or upon any individual Member. I shall be glad if you will make whatever use of this letter you may wish to do.

BILL PRESENTED.

LAND DRAINAGE (SCOTLAND) BILL,

"to make further provision for the drainage of agricultural land in Scotland"; presented by Mr. Ernest Brown; supported by the Lord Advocate, the Solicitor-General for Scotland and Mr. Westwood; to be read a Second time upon the next Sitting Day, and to be printed. [Bill 11.]

CIVIL ESTIMATES (SUPPLE- MENTARY ESTIMATES, 1940).

Estimate presented,—of the further Sum required to be voted for the Service of the year ending 31st March, 1941 [by Command]; referred to the Committee of Supply, and to be printed. [No. 43.]

MESSAGE FROM THE LORDS.

NATIONAL EXPENDITURE.

That they give leave to the Lord Hyndley to attend in order to his being examined as a Witness before the Sub-Committee on Transport Services appointed by the Select Committee appointed by this House on National Expenditure, if his Lordship think fit.

Orders of the Day — PRIVILEGE.

Order read for resuming Adjourned Debate on Question [5th February]:
That the matter of the Complaint be referred to the Committee of Privileges."—[Mr. Spens.]

Question again proposed.

Mr. Speaker: I desire to read to the House two letters which I have received since the Debate took place. The first letter is from Messrs. Joynson-Hicks and Company, and is as follows:
To the Rt. Hon. The Speaker, House of Commons, S.W.I.
Sir,
Our attention has been called to the proceedings in Parliament arising out of our letter published under the heading of 'Mr. Weininger' in the 'Times' issue of 31st January,1941.
As signatories to the letter, we seek leave on behalf of our client and ourselves to offer to the hon. Members of the House of Commons a sincere and humble apology for the matter in respect of which you have ruled that a prima facie case exists which may constitute a breach of Privilege.
May we add that it would appear from the reports in the press of the Proceedings in the House that a phrase which we used in our letter would seem to have been construed differently from our intention? In using the words 'These are the facts as we know them,' we intended to convey that we had set out the facts which, having been communicated to us by our client in the form of instructions, were within our personal knowledge. It never occurred to us that this expression could he construed as a challenge to the existence of those facts which were found by the Select Committee, and we appreciate and greatly regret that this phrase was open to such an interpretation.
We have the honour to be, 
Your respectful and obedient servants, 
JOYNSON-HICKS &amp; COMPANY.
I have also received the following letter from the Editor of the "Times" news paper:
Sir I have read the report of the discussion in the House of Commons on Wednesday last relating to the publication in the 'Times' of January 31st, of a letter from Messrs. Joynson-Hicks &amp; Company. As Editor of the 'Times' I naturally take full responsibility for the publication of the letter.
I see that you, Sir, have come to the conclusion that Mr. Spens made a prima facie case that the letter, in the form in which it appeared, constituted a breach of Privilege, and in view of your Ruling I am most ready to apologise to the House and to yourself for its publication.
I have the honour to be, 
Your obedient servant, 
 GEOFFREY DAWSON.

Colonel Gretton: It is within the recollection of the House that I moved the Motion for the Adjournment of the Debate last week, in expectation of a letter being received from the solicitors, Messrs. Joynson-Hicks & Company. That letter, Sir, you have just read to the House, as well as the letter from the editor of the "Times" newspaper. I suggest that no Member of this House wants to pursue these matters of Privilege too far, and I am confident that no one who was a member of the Select Committee desires to carry these matters further than need be. In the circumstances, I suggest that the letters of withdrawal and apology be accepted, and the incident so closed.

Mr. Spens: I would ask leave of the House, in the circumstances, to withdraw the Motion.

Motion, by leave, withdrawn.

SUPPLY.

REPORT [6th February].

Resolutions reported:

SUPPLEMENTARY VOTE OF CREDIT, 1940. (EXPENDITURE ARISING OUT OF THE WAR.)
1. That a Supplementary sum, not exceeding £600,000,000, be granted to His Majesty, towards defraying the expenses which may be incurred during the year ending on the 31st clay of March, 1941, for general Navy, Army and Air Services and for the Ministry of Supply, in so far as specific provision is not made therefor by Parliament, for securing the public safety, the Defence of the Realm, the maintenance of public order and the efficient prosecution of the war, for maintaining supplies and services essential to the life of the community and generally for all expenses, beyond those provided for in the ordinary Grants of Parliament, arising out of the existence of a state of war.

VOTE OF CREDIT, 1941.

(EXPENDITURE ARISING OUT OF THE WAR.)

2. "That a sum, not exceeding 1,000,000,000 be granted to His Majesty, towards defraying the expenses which may be incurred during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1942, for general Navy, Army and Air Services and for the Ministry of Supply, in so far as specific provision is not made therefor by Parliament, for securing the public safety, the Defence of the Realm, the maintenance of public order and the efficient prosecution of the war, for maintaining supplies and services essential to the life of the community and generally for all expenses beyond those provided for in the ordinary Grants of Parliament, arising out of the existence of a state of war."

First Resolution read a Second time.

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House doth agree with the Committee in the said Resolution."

Mr. Hammersley: I apologise for delaying my remarks till the Report stage of the Resolution. I read the Committee stage, and I was interested by the fact that the Debate was dominated to a great extent by economic and financial considerations. I would like, shortly, to put the producers' point of view. We have to consider the future of the country after the war, and it is essential that the efficiency of the producer should be maintained, having regard to the financial burden that will have to be carried by the community as a whole.
The Chancellor of the Exchequer made two main points with which everybody in the Committee agreed. They were that civilian consumption must continue to be curtailed and that the taxpayers' further efforts to fortify the revenue were essential. I do not think there is doubt that those two main lines of policy are agreed upon throughout the House, but a considerable division of opinion was shown during the Debate as to how those policies should be carried out. The hon. Member for Hastings (Mr. Hely-Hutchinson), whose observations on these matters I always read with great interest, said that the public are in a great difficulty. He said that if he was fortunate enough to be able to sell his house, he would not be entitled to go on the razzle with the proceeds. I think he would agree that if that is true about his house, it is also true about his stocks and shares, his silver and plate, and whatever capital assets he may possess. He went on to say:
Those who have capital assets have to be prepared to accept from the Government a restriction on their free power to dispose of the proceeds. Speaking as a free man and not under compulsion, I declare that with a whole heart I am willing to accept that restriction on my free power of disposal."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 6th February, 1941; col. 1132, Vol. 368.]
I wonder whether the hon. Member had considered the implication of that expression of view. It is something with which I entirely disagree. How could that restriction be brought into effect? It could be brought into effect only on the assumption that the banks were instructed to divide a person's private account into what might be described as income and

what might be described as capital. If they were called upon to block the private accounts of capital in respect of each individual, that, in my opinion, would result in not what the House and the country require, which is less control by bankers, but greater control by bankers. Moreover, it would not be effective, because whatever you could do in respect of a man with a banking account, I do not think the country would be willing to deprive a small man of the right of withdrawing his savings, and it is the withdrawn savings of the small man that do in fact constitute the greater part of a possible increase of purchasing power. On this question of the curtailment of consumption, I prefer the idea put forward by the hon. Member for East Birkenhead (Mr. White), namely, the extension of rationing and the extension of price control. We should have rationing of the bulk of the articles which enter into the cost-of-living index, including rents. It is true that there would be a possibility of a rise in the prices of luxury goods, hut I cannot see the danger in that. I do not think it would be against the national interest if the price of articles like pianos was increased three or four times the prewar price.
Then there is the question of more taxation. It seemed to me that there was an underlying feeling that a further increase in the general level of Income Tax was almost inevitable, and, speaking as a producer and perhaps with a biased point of view, I think the general level of Income Tax is already high enough It might be possible to introduce a differential rate of Super-tax so that Super-tax payers who drew their income from unearned sources would pay a higher rate than Super-tax payers whose income was earned. But that is only a little bit of slack that remains in the general community. If we are to forge ahead after this war, we must get private enterprise back into business. How can that be done if the rate of Income Tax is to be maintained at something like 10s. in the £? It would be a situation in which the man with enterprise would say that the dice were loaded against him. If the enterprise is unfortunate, he loses everything. If the enterprise is fortunate, the State takes the bulk of the proceeds. Therefore, private enterprise will not he brought back into business if the present


level of Income Tax is increased. Of course, the Chancellor of the Exchequer must get the money—

Mr. Speaker: The hon. Member is speaking about Income Tax, and he certainly cannot do that in Supply.

Mr. Hammersley: I was dealing with a question which was raised during tile Committee stage of the Bill. I am sure the House will forgive me, because, from the country's point of view, it is important that the producer's point should be put forward. I shall not occupy the House another minute; I am answering a point which was raised during the Committee stage. I was saying that the Chancellor requires to have his revenue fortified. I was going to suggest that, instead of raising the average level of income Tax, there is another source of revenue open to the Chancellor.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. Member is doing exactly what I said he must not do. He is dealing with Income Tax in Supply.

Mr. Hammersley: I will leave Income Tax entirely, and proceed with what I was going to say, namely, that you can tax capital.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. Member cannot raise that either in Supply.

Mr. Hammersley: I think that I have been able to put the producer's point of view to a certain extent, and, in view of your Ruling, Sir, I hope that we shall get the Report stage without further discussion.

Sir Irving Albery: I rise only to say that it seems to me to be desirable that this House should have an opportunity for a general Debate on finance.
Question, "That this House doth agree with the Committee in the said Resolution," put, and agreed to.

WAYS AND MEANS.

REPORT [6th February.]

Resolutions reported;
1. "That, towards making good the Supply granted to His Majesty for the service of the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1941, the sum of 1600,000,000 be granted out of

the Consolidated Fund of the United Kingdom.
2. "That, towards making good the Supply granted to His Majesty for the service of the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1942, the sum of £1,000,000,000 he granted out of the Consolidated Fund of the United Kingdom.

Resolutions agreed to.

Bill ordered to be brought in upon the said Resolution by the Chairman of Ways and Means, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and Captain Crookshank.

CONSOLIDATED FUND (No. I) BILL,

"to apply certain sums out of the Consolidated Fund to the service of the years ending on the thirty-first day of March, one thousand nine hundred and forty-one and one thousand nine hundred and forty-two,"

presented accordingly, and read the First time; to be read a Second time upon the next Sitting Day, and to be printed. [Bill 12.]

WAR DAMAGE BILL.

Considered in Committee. [Progress, 5th February.]

[Colonel CLIFTON BROWN in the Chair.]

CLAUSE 43.—(Goods insurable under the schemes.)

Sir Joseph Lamb: I beg to move, in page 33, line 7, after "business," to insert:
Provided that any livestock being agisted by the owner thereof to another person shall be insured by the owner thereof and not by the person to whom it is agisted.
The policy contained in this Amendment is also contained in certain other Amendments on the Paper, particularly one in the name of the hon. Member for South Croydon (Sir H. Williams). While supporting the principle contained in those other Amendments, I propose to confine my remarks to the effects which this proposal will have on agriculture and to leave other hon. Members to speak of it in relation to other matters. The object of my Amendment is to provide that a man shall not be expected to insure the same stock twice over. There is a system in agriculture known as "agistment," under which stock passes not from the ownership of one person to another, but from the custody of one person to another, for purposes of maintenance. As the word "agistment" is not commonly used


throughout the country, I think it better to explain its meaning as used in connection with this Amendment. Animals belonging to the owner of one farm, may be transferred to another farm which is in different ownership. We do not wish that the man to whom the custody of the animals has been transferred, should be made responsible for the insurance or the payment of contributions in respect of that stock, or that he should be the person to whom compensation would be payable, in the event of damage. The owner of the stock should still be liable in those respects. If this Amendment is accepted, it will ensure that dual payments will not be made in respect of one lot of stock; it will be made clear that the owner of the stock is responsible for the payments and is also the person who should receive compensation.

Sir Herbert Williams: It might save time if this Amendment, and that which stands in my name —in page 33, line 11, at the end, to insert:
Provided that any public service vehicle which is let on hire by the owner thereof to another person shall be insured by the owner thereof and not by the person to whom it has been let on hire, whether or not it is hell or used by that person 
were discussed together, as they raise the same issue, though it is true that one relates to a cow while the other relates to a bus. I have put down this Amendment, having had some association, however remote and indirect, with the omnibus industry. The omnibus people are anxious to make sure that while a bus is insured, it should not be insured twice over. As a result of putting down this Amendment I have had representations from other people concerned in hire-purchase and it might be convenient if certain other aspects of that matter were also considered in connection with these Amendments. The position with regard to hire-purchase goods is rather ambiguous. In the Memorandum to the Bill there is a reference to Clause 55 (2) and Clause 57. I have read those Clauses and, frankly, I do not understand their provisions in relation to this matter. Perhaps the President of the Board of Trade will help us later, in considering those points.

The Deputy-Chairman: I do not chink it will be very convenient to discuss all those matters on an Amendment which deals only with livestock.

Sir H. Williams: I thought it might be convenient to raise the whole issue now and that my Amendment with regard to the bus might be treated at the same time as my hon. Friend's Amendment with regard to the cow.

The Solicitor-General (Sir William Jowitt): I think I can make a reply on this Amendment which, though confined to the actual consideration of the cow, will in fact be wide enough to cover the bus.

Sir J. Lamb: May I point out that I did not use the expression about the cow and that my Amendment applies to stock generally?

The Solicitor-General: It applies to any case of agistment. The position under the Bill is this, that the person who ought to insure is the person who is at risk. Suppose that livestock, or a bus, or anything else you like, is destroyed by a direct hit and disappears, on whom does the loss fall? In every case of agistment which I have seen the loss would fall upon the owner of the cattle. The person who was agisting the cattle in his fields had done no wrong. He kept the cattle safe as far as he was concerned and was not responsible for the bombing attack. Therefore the loss of the cattle would fall upon the owner of the cattle and the owner is obviously the person who ought to insure. Of course, there might be some highly special contract between the parties—though I have never seen one—by which the person undertaking to agist the cattle placed himself under an obligation to return the cattle. He would then be at risk, and if he were at risk, it would be for him to insure against that risk. The Clause, as drawn, provides for not only the owner but also the possessor, insuring his interest in the goods. It is intended to be drawn comprehensively to meet the two cases which I have put, but it is contemplated that we shall clarify it, by subsequent orders setting out the various persons having an interest in the goods. The general principle, however, is that the person who ought to be responsible


for the insurance is the person on whom the loss will fall, if, by enemy action, the subject-matter of the insurance is destroyed.

Sir H. Williams: I was held up when I made a reference to hire purchase. I do not think that paragraph (b) of the Sub-section does cover goods on hire purchase, and that is why I sought to raise the issue.

Mr. Denman: I am sure the Committee agrees with the view expressed by the Solicitor-General, but is not the language of the Bill contradictory? The Bill says that the goods to be insured are those which are in the person's possession, whether he is the owner or not. Obviously, cattle which have been agisted are in the possession of the person with whom they are agisted, although he does not own them. Is he not, therefore, under the Bill obliged to insure them?

Mr. Silkin: I wish to know what the position is with regard to various other specific matters in this connection. For example, if goods sent to a laundry or a film of cleaners are destroyed by enemy action, is the launderer or the cleaner responsible for the insurance? I have read the Clause but I find it difficult to ascertain what is the liability of a launderer under it. Apparently the owner of clothing sent to a laundry is under no obligation to insure and I should have thought that, in such a case, the laundry company should be responsible. Then there is the case of a man who sends his watch to the jeweller for repairs. It does not seem that the jeweller would have to insure the watch under the commodity insurance scheme because it is not part of the stock and I am not certain whether the owner can insure such a thing as a watch, but that is a matter which ought to be covered somehow. There is also the case of bookbinders who bind material sent to them by printers and publishers. If this material is destroyed by enemy action, who is responsible for its insurance, the book-binder or the publisher? There are other points of the same kind which one could put to the Solicitor-General but all I want to say at the moment is that the Clause is not clear and I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will look into it and remove any doubt as to those on

whom the responsibility for insurance should fall.

Mr. Woods: I do not know whether the point raised in an Amendment which stands in my name is covered by the question raised by the hon. Member who has just spoken. There is a whole range of goods which appear not to be covered. The point raised by the hon. Member for Stone (Sir J. Lamb) is the danger of goods being insured twice. It is evidently the intention of the present Amendment to prevent that, but the Amendment which follows is totally different and proposes to bring within insurance goods which are not covered but for which the person or persons who are holding them will be held responsible, and which may amount to thousands of pounds' worth in the case, for example, of a big laundry. The object of my Amendment is to see that these goods are covered, so I do not see how we can be discussing the two together under this Amendment unless there is some considerable misunderstanding.

The Solicitor-General: The object of Clause 43 is to deal, not with persons, but with goods. It sets out what goods are insurable, and I think the Committee will have the same wishes on this subject as we have ourselves, namely, that we must avoid double insurance. We must see that two people do not both have to pay premiums in respect of the same goods, and we must also see that the person who has to bear the premium is the one on whom the risk falls and who will have to bear the loss of the goods. So far, that is common ground. In considering bookbinders, laundrymen and the like, the War Liability (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act, which was passed during the first few days of the war, does declare the law in ordinary cases, although, of course, it admits of special agreements for contracting out of liability. Broadly speaking, the liability is placed upon the man who is the owner, and not on the man who is bailee, whether for work or any other purpose. But all these matters will certainly be looked into. The Clause obviously contemplates, and it will be necessary to have, subsequent Orders to define the respective rights of various people in respect of insured goods. In drawing up those Orders, we will bear in mind what has been said and will certainly take care that goods are insured


once and not twice, and that the person who pays the premium is the person on whom the risk falls.

Sir J. Lamb: I do not think there is any difference between the object of the Committee and that of the Solicitor-General on this point, namely, that goods shall not be insured twice. My Amendment relates to a difficulty which arises in considering the agricultural industry on the same lines as general industry, because of the difference in procedure which exists. In this case cattle come under the heading of goods insurable by a person carrying on business "which are in his possession…", and, as I see it, it would still be possible under the Bill for them to be insured twice. I would draw attention to Sub-section (8), page 36, which says:
the expression 'farming business' means a business carried on by any person wholly or mainly in connection with the occupation by him of agricultural land.
I call attention to the word "occupation," which would seem to indicate that stock on the land occupied by him are included. However, having called attention to the words in the Bill and having heard the Solicitor-General's explanation, I would beg to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment, on the understanding that this matter shall receive full consideration later, in order to see that there shall be only one insurance of stock.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

The President of the Board of Trade (Mr. Lyttelton): I beg to move, in page 33, line 10, after "mortgage," to insert "or right in security."

Major Milner: This Amendment proposes to introduce words which I have not come across in any other connection. I am not altogether sure they are suitable to the purpose. "Right by way of security" I could understand; I can understand a mortgage or some other form of security in the nature of a mortgage, but perhaps we might have an explanation as to why it is necessary to introduce the words "or right in security." They introduce something new into the definition of a mortgage, or, alternatively, they constitute something in the nature of a duplication. I should also like to ask what is the position in the case of a bill of sale. Does that come

under this provision? For example, I might have in my office goods which are the subject of a bill of sale to someone else. These goods are my property. Is it the duty under this Bill of the owner of the bill of sale, or mortgagee, to insure these goods? On this Clause it rather appears as though it was his duty and not the duty of the owner of the goods. It would appear to throw the duty on the mortgagee, as the goods would be the subject of a mortgage in his favour. I do not desire to press the matter but perhaps the Solicitor-General could give some explanation. If so, I should be grateful.

The Solicitor-General: I sympathise with my hon. and gallant Friend's difficulty; he and I were both brought up in the English law. But Scots law differs, and in order to make the necessary application to Scotland we have to use a phrase which is dear to the hearts of the Scots lawyers, namely, "rights in security," which is a Scottish phrase. I do not think it will have any effect on the English law at all. On the other point raised by my hon. and gallant Friend, the expression "subject of a mortgage" includes any charge or lien on any property for securing money or goods.

Amendment agreed to.

Colonel Arthur Evans: In the unavoidable absence of my hon. Friend the Member for Dulwich (Mr. Bracewell Smith), I beg to move, in page 33, line 11, at the end, to insert:
Provided that if the Board of Trade are satisfied that goods held by any person for the purpose of any business are not owing to special circumstances being used beneficially by him in the course of that business they may if so requested exempt such goods from the provisions of this subsection subject to such conditions as may by order be laid down.
I think the Amendment is clear in its meaning without any explanation, but as far as the hotel and restaurant industry is concerned, which I think my hon. Friend the Member for Dulwich has in mind, I think it is agreed that the majority of the people chiefly concerned are prepared and indeed anxious to play their part in any scheme of compulsory insurance. But I think it is recognised that there is a minority who, owing to special circumstances outside their control, are unable to afford to make a contribution of this kind. A number of hotels in many parts of the country have been closed, for reasons


beyond the control of the proprietors. Districts have been virtually evacuated, and the general public are prohibited by regulations from entering those areas, with the result that hotels have been closed down entirely. Furniture has been removed and stored in places of safety, yet, under this Clause, such furniture is held to be a perquisite of the business, and, if worth over £1,000, it must be insured by the proprietor of the hotel. In some cases a great deal of money would be involved, and, as the hotel proprietors are unable to earn any revenue, they cannot possibly take the steps required by the Clause. There is another case, somewhat rare, of hotels, of a small artistic character, being decorated with works of art, in order to make them more agreeable. These works of art have been stored for the duration of the war, either in the same vicinity or elsewhere. It does not seem right that the proprietor should be compelled to insure those works of art. I hope that my right hon. Friend will either accept the Amendment, or, at a later stage, suggest another Amendment, so worded as to meet the case.

Sir Percy Harris: This is a very difficult and serious problem, which particularly affects a number of small hotel and lodging-house keepers in London. In areas like Bloomsbury there are hundreds of small hotel keepers who are almost reduced to bankruptcy. They assure me that they are not in a position to meet this obligation, and if some concession can be made to meet their position, it will be a real benefit.

Sir Robert Tasker: I should like to supplement what my hon. Friend the Member for South West Bethnal Green (Sir P. Harris) has said. In Holborn and in other areas in London, there are hundreds of hotel and boarding-house keepers who are in peril of insolvency if the present state of affairs continues indefinitely. I have furnished certified records to the Ministry, setting out the names and addresses of hotels and boarding-houses, giving particulars of the average number of rooms in each occupied before the war and the actual number occupied on the date when I handed in the particulars. These show that where before the war the average number of rooms occupied had been, say, 20, there were on the date when statistics were compiled perhaps three, two, or no rooms

at all occupied. With regard to lodging houses, there is often a very large sum of money owing for goodwill and improvements and upon the furniture. I urge that between now and the Report stage the Minister should examine the difficulties and endeavour to meet the wishes of the supporters of the Amendment.

Mr. Lyttelton: Paragraph (c) of Subsection (1) of Clause 45 provides that the Board of Trade shall have power to make insurance under the business scheme voluntary in respect of goods of such descriptions as may be prescribed. I can assure my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for South Cardiff (Colonel A. Evans) that the Board of Trade will give every consideration to those who find themselves in the unfortunate position to which he has referred. The Amendment is drawn a little too widely, and would place the Board of Trade in a difficulty in regard to certain other cases; but we shall, as far as possible, meet the wishes of the supporters of this Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Mr. Woods: I beg to move, in page 33, line 11, at the end, to insert:
or
(d) which are held by him in the course of his business as baillie.
I appreciate what the Solicitor-General has said with regard to the extension of this Measure, but we should like some definite assurance that the problem with which this Amendment is concerned will be met. The Solicitor-General's statement that this matter is covered by legislation needs some examination There are, for example, the cases of laundry, boot repairs, and various other things, which individually may be small, but when held in bulk represent very considerable sums of money and very considerable liabilities. These goods are not covered by the War Risk Insurance Act, 1939, for several reasons. They are not held as goods for sale, they are not the property of the businesses where they have been deposited, nor are they materials from which goods for sale are being produced. The goods held by a laundry are the soap and starch and so forth, so that a laundry of fairly considerable size might not itself come under the legislation, owing to the small volume of goods which it holds. As a matter of fact, the only thing which the laundry proprietor puts into the goods


that he deals with is starch, and that is compensated for by what he takes out in the shape of dirt.

Sir R. Tasker: Is my hon. Friend prepared to include dyers and cleaners?

Mr. Woods: Certainly. This is a general Amendment. So long as we can get an assurance on the principle of the Amendment, we shall be satisfied. It may be that the wording of this Amendment would not be satisfactory. In the case of a laundry, responsibility is taken by the proprietor for the safe custody and return of the customer's goods. If an item is lost cash payment is made by way of compensation, and if goods are damaged and the laundry is responsible compensation is paid. Some laundries have accepted responsibility for losses due to enemy action, and have paid compensation to their customers for such loss. If the position can be met by including within the scope of the Bill goods held as bailee, we shall be satisfied, and I hope that the Amendment will be accepted or modified to achieve what is intended.

The Solicitor-General: This Amendment, as drawn, has an unintended Scottish flavour about it. A "bailie," I understand, is a magistrate, and what the Amendment is intended to do is not to deal with a "bailie" but with the position of a "bailee" in English law. But this really deals with the point which we discussed before. We heard about the laundry being nominally responsible for returning goods, but I can express the very confident opinion that, if I had my goods at a laundry, and a bomb came down and blew up the laundry, and, incidentally, also my goods, the unfortunate laundryman would not be responsible to me. The loss of my goods would fall upon me, and consequently I am the person who would take the risk in respect of these goods, and obviously I am the person who ought to insure. In so far as the bailee has any risk by reason of contract, if he is primarily responsible, he is the person who has the risk and ought to insure. The subsequent Order that we contemplate making will make it plain, and we shall try to define the goods to be insured—to be insured once and not twice—and to define the persons who are to insure, who are the persons responsible in respect of these

particular goods. I assure the hon. Member that the observations which he has made will be carefully considered, and we will look into the matter and see whether there is anything further required to be done between now and the Report stage. We all have the same object in mind and agree that anybody who has a risk ought to be able to insure that risk, and should, in that event, pay the premium.

Mr. Woods: While appreciating the point that the Solicitor-General has put forward, I submit that it would not involve double insurance, because the bulk of the items of clothing at many laundries come, in some cases, exclusively from that section of the population whose goods are not covered by insurance. On the question of special contract, it is the fact that in many laundries there is no responsible contract between the client and the laundry. It would be absurd to imagine that a contract could be entered into and signed by anybody and that the laundry should meet it. All that there is to work upon is the common custom, which is, that most reputable laundries have accepted the risk while goods are in their possession.

The Solicitor-General: The risk of what? Ordinary risk is one thing, and war risk is quite a different thing. There is no common custom with regard to laundries in respect of war risk—none whatever.

Mr. Woods: I have already stated that in some cases laundries have already paid compensation, as they assumed that it was part of the usual process. However, it makes no difference to the position either of the person who sends the laundry or of the laundry itself—if goods are lost, then, the question of compensation arises. They are not covered at either end under this Bill, and in the case of large boot-repairing concerns, it may be a very considerable matter. While there is no contract, there is good will, and if it is left entirely on the assumption that that sort of thing does not come within the scope of the Bill, we may have a position in which some people will be covered because of double insurance, and others not covered at all. A laundry placed in that position would probably come to the end of its resources. I hope that the matter will he looked into in that light.

Sir William Davison: I am not very clear in my mind with regard to the explanation which the learned Solicitor-General has just given to the Committee. What is the position of the ordinary citizen if he insures under the War Damage Bill? Will it cover his goods whether they are at the laundry, or at the cleaners or wherever they are? The Solicitor-General, I gather, has just said that they will be covered wherever they are, and, if so, that meets the point. But I do not think that it was made very clear whether, if you insure your goods, and if you send them out to be cleaned at a laundry, say, at Harlesden, or somewhere else, and they are destroyed by an enemy bomb, they will be covered by the insurance under this Bill. If the Solicitor-General really says that they will he covered wherever they are, then, I think, it is quite satisfactory.

The Deputy-Chairman: Does the hon. Member wish to withdraw the Amendment?

Mr. Woods: The last contribution still leaves us where we were. It is assumed that all goods are covered, but a very considerable volume would not be covered because the individuals concerned would have no insurance such as was suggested. Even if they are covered, the practical question arises whether the Department wants to deal with thousands of individual claims, spread all over, or whether it would be more advantageous to include the whole in the scheme and deal with the laundry, which, for the time being, is the responsible custodian of the goods. If the position is as suggested by the last speaker, and we can have an assurance that it is to be met by the Government, I am prepared to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment, but I do not gather that we have had such an assurance yet.

The Solicitor-General: As I understood the hon. Member for South Kensington (Sir W. Davison), he wanted the matter cleared up, and wished to know whether any difference was made by reason of the fact that you sent goods away from home The answer is obviously "No." If a man insures specific goods, and sends them to Harlesden to the wash, they are insured all the time under the normal insurance of to-day, and they will be under war insurance in future. Should they be lost, whether by a bomb on the home or a

bomb on the laundry to which they have been sent, the owner will be at risk and he will get the compensation.

Mr. R. J. Taylor: With regard to the question of compensation for people who are at present entitled to free insurance on account of their income, do I understand that that position still stands in respect of this class of goods? Would the right hon. and learned Gentleman make it clear that their goods, when at the laundry, will still be covered although they do not come within the War Damage Bill?

The Solicitor-General: Certainly, these people will get compensation. They get compensation in respect of the loss of their goods. The goods are theirs whether they are lost in their homes or in the laundry.

Mr. Douglas: The Solicitor-General is very confident about the position in these matters, but as I read this part of the Bill, a great deal will depend upon the regulations which will determine the extent and nature of the indemnity which is to be provided by the Board of Trade. If we have an assurance that the policies will be drawn with a wide definition and that, in effect, there will be indemnity for everybody who insures voluntarily, no matter where his goods may be transported, it will certainly meet to a considerable extent the point which is raised in this Amendment. It does not, however, meet it quite fully because there is still the question of public policy as to whether it is expedient to impose upon people carrying on businesses in which they receive goods as bailees the express liability of insuring them and relieving from that liability the persons to whom they belong.
It is purely a question of what is expedient and nothing more. It may well be argued that in imposing a liability upon those who conduct businesses of this nature, you are imposing a liability upon people who conduct other businesses in which the goods they hold are their absolute property. If you make a distinction between the two cases you are, in effect, giving preference to those businesses which happen to carry on their trade by means of goods which are in their possession, but are not their property. I hope, therefore, that the Solicitor-General and the President of the Board of Trade will consider this point more fully.

The Solicitor-General: We will certainly consider everything every hon. Member has said, but speaking with considerable confidence I will say this: If you are to make it compulsory for bailees to insure you will do the very thing we want to avoid—that is, cause things to be insured twice over.

Mr. Woods: I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Amendments made:

In page 33, line 28, leave out "which, in relation to that person, are goods insurable," and insert "as respects which that person is, or could be, insured."

In line 31, at the end, insert, "estuaries."—[Mr. Lyttelton.]

Sir Irving Albery: I beg to move, in page 33, line 32, at the end, to insert:
or a vessel laid up in inland waters.

The Deputy-Chairman: I think it might be for the convenience of the Committee if this Amendment and the next were discussed together.

Sir I. Albery: My Amendment really raises the question of the extent to which certain small vessels are included. The preceding Amendment seems to have been confined to small vessels which never go out to sea, but are limited to estuaries or rivers. But a very large number of small vessels which are in much the same category, are not strictly confined to inland waters or estuaries. For example, small yachts may go a long way out to sea, yet many of them are used as houseboats. I put down my Amendment to raise this point.

Sir John Wardlaw-Milne: I understand, Colonel Clifton Brown, that your Ruling was that this Amendment and the following one which stands in my name should be considered together. My Amendment is in page 33, line 32, at the end, to insert:
or an unrequisitioned vessel which has been employed in the coasting trade of the United Kingdom or Eire when undergoing or awaiting repairs, or a day passenger boat.
Of course I entirely agree with your decision, although the point of my Amendment is really rather different. My hon. Friend's Amendment refers to vessels laid up in inland waters and this would really add, I submit, a further prescrip-

tion to the words already in the Clause to which the Amendment of my right hon. Friend the Chancellor has already added the word "estuaries." My Amendment is put down with the object of endeavouring to get the Government, in some way or other, to give a fairer deal to certain vessels in the coasting trade, and if possible enable them to obtain insurance on reasonable terms in respect of the risk against which they have no means of covering themselves at present.
A certain proportion of our coastal tramp shipping is, from time to time, requisitioned by the Ministry of Shipping but the Ministry as a rule prefers that the bulk of the coasting trade vessels which they require should remain in the hands of the owners and be operated by them at strictly controlled rates. The rates fixed under that control, which the Government pay, are calculated to provide for the operating expenses and give only a reasonable return on capital. If a requisitioned vessel is laid up—and this is where the difficulty arises—for repairs due to war risks, hire money continues to he paid to the owner but if it is laid up for repairs due to marine risks no hire money is paid but the Ministry bears the cost of the war risks insurance until it is hack in service, so that the ship is at least insured in the latter case, although the owner gets nothing for interest and depreciation. In the other case, however, that of a non-requisitioned vessel, the owner is at a very considerable disadvantage. The controlled rates which are fixed for his vessel do make allowance for a normal period occupied in repairs but it is not possible in these rates to provide for the exceptional period required for serious repairs. Under the ship insurance scheme the owner of a non-requisitioned ship in the coasting trade is at a disadvantage and under the present arrangement has no means at all of covering this risk out of his earnings.
Under that scheme the cost of war risk insurance is £7 per cent. per quarter or 28 per cent per annum. When a ship is earning nothing it is impossible for the owner to pay a premium of this kind. It is a premium fixed in relation to risks incurred by an ocean-going vessel on the high seas and bears no relation to the risks of a vessel awaiting or undergoing long repairs. In these circumstances the risk is really comparable to that of a vessel


in course of construction, which is insured under the commodity scheme at the rate of 7s. 6d. per cent. per month or £6 per cent. per annum which is quite a different thing. The owner does not have that risk covered by the Government and having no earnings is clearly not in a position to pay the rate which works out, as I say, at 28 per cent. per annum. In another case, namely, vessels operating in harbour, they are insured at 30s. per cent. for the whole period from September, 1939, to September, 1941. To a large number of owners of coasting tramp ships, owners who have one, two, or three ships, the loss of uninsured vessels would be serious, and in some cases disastrous. There is one other class of vessels to which I want to refer, namely, pleasure steamers of the Thames Estuary, the Mersey, or the Isle of Wight type. In war time these vessels have a very special national value, as undoubtedly they proved at Dunkirk. The normal services are now suspended, and the owners of the vessels have no revenue out of which to provide insurance. Yet the vessels ought to be insured, and if insurance were available at a reasonable figure, no doubt the owners would wish so to insure, even if doing so involved a debt against the day when earnings are again possible.
There has never been a time when the country was more conscious of the value of its shipping than it is to-day. It is a pity that we were not more conscious of its value in the years gone by. In those days, some of us were indeed voices crying in the wilderness. However, the past is past. The Government have now covered the whole range of war risk insurance, and I think that if my right hon. Friend will look into this matter, he will see that there is a gap in the case of the owners of coasting vessels whose vessels are not requisitioned but are controlled only, and who, because they are in that position, are not able to cover their war insurance. I hope that if my right hon. Friend finds that the facts I have put before him constitute a case worth looking into, he will be able to meet it by accepting my Amendment.

Mr. Lyttelton: The purpose of the Amendment moved by my hon. Friend the Member for Gravesend (Sir I. Albery) is to include sea-going vessels laid up in inland waters for repairs. In those

circumstances, the owner would be able to insure his vessel at 30s. per cent. instead of incurring the high rate of war risk insurance which he has to do at present. However, it would be very undesirable for the conservation of our shipping resources to hold out inducements to remain repairing in inland waters at a lower rate of premium and not to push on with the repairs. It is proposed to meet this point by continuing to insure vessels under the Marine War Risks Insurance Scheme when they are not in use at a lower premium than that which is applicable when they are in use. I am not quite seized of the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Kidderminster (Sir j. Wardlaw-Milne), but I will examine it.

Sir I. Albery: Surely, my right hon. Friend has missed the point which I made. What is the difference between ex-chiding this small type of vessel used solely in rivers and estuaries and a similar cass of vessel which happens for the time being to be laid up? I cannot see why they should not be insurable on the same terms.

Mr. Silkin: A very formidable case has been put up for these Amendments, and I am sure the Committee will not be satisfied with the right hon. Gentleman's brief dismissal of the arguments that have been made. The right hon. Gentleman said in one breath that we do not want to give an inducement to ship-owners to keep their ships under repair any longer than is necessary, but in the next breath he said he intends to look into the matter of providing a reduced premium, which seems to me to amount to the same thing. If there is a reduced premium while a ship is under repair, it will give the same inducement as would the benefits of this Bill. I hope that the powerful case that has been made will receive a more complete reply than the brief one which the right hon. Gentleman has given.

Sir J. Wardlaw-Milne: I do not wish to press the matter too far to-day and I am prepared to accept the assurance that my right hon. Friend will look into it. I am not certain that he has fully seized the point I made, and if so it is my fault no doubt. But, in a sentence, it is the difference between the position of a coasting owner with a requisitioned shin and an owner with an unrequisitioned ship


when the vessel is undergoing long repairs. It is an important point, and I am glad to have an assurance that it will be looked into carefully.

Sir I. Albery: From the Debate it has turned out that the points raised in these two Amendments are dissimilar, and the fact that they have been taken together has made discussion of them a little difficult. I should like to have the following point elucidated. Under the Bill as it now is, a certain class of vessel, if it is operated in inland waters or estuaries, is covered by insurance; a similar class of vessel, if it is not operated but is laid up, is not covered.

Mr. Lyttelton: The point is whether the vessel is a sea-going vessel or not. If it is a sea-going vessel and is laid up for repairs, it is insured under the Marine War Risks Insurance Scheme. What my hon. Friend says is correct—there is an anomaly owing to the rates of premium. There is no anomaly in principle, because it is natural that vessels at work in inland waters should be insured under one scheme and sea-going vessels under another. There is an anomaly if the rates of premium for sea-going vessels undergoing repairs are altogether out of line with the corresponding risk. That is what we propose to put right, and the Ministry of Shipping are now discussing the matter with the interests involved.

Sir I. Albery: Will my right hon. Friend bear in mind that the differentiation is not one of insurance, but rather one of tonnage? Boats of 20 tons may be seagoing vessels and boats of 30 tons inland water vessels.

Mr. Lyttelton: I do not think it is a question of tonnage, but one of risk. Vessels at sea incur different risks from vessels in the Thames.

Amendment negatived.

Amendments made:

In page 33, leave out lines 36 and 37.

In line 38, after "insured," insert "or re-insured."

In line 39, at the end, add:
or (e) any goods in the possession of, or held at the disposal of, a Government Department or any other person on behalf of His Majesty, so long as the owner of the goods is entitled, and, in the case of goods

being a vehicle or aircraft, is entitled otherwise than by virtue of the Compensation (Defence) Act, 1939, to be indemnified by the Crown against war damage to the goods.
For the purposes of this Sub-section a vessel shall be deemed to be used solely in the manner specified in paragraph (b) thereof notwithstanding that it may be used otherwise on any special occasion, or so long as any use to which it is put otherwise than in the manner specified in the said paragraph (b) is incidental only to its being used in the said manner.
() For the purpose of this Section, where any goods are consigned from a port in the United Kingdom to any other such port in a vessel which in its transit between those ports is not due to call at any port outside the United Kingdom, the goods shall at all times during the transit be deemed to be situated in the United Kingdom."—[Mr. Lyttelton.]

Clause, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.

CLAUSE 44.—(Time for payment of losses under the schemes.)

Sir J. Lamb: I beg to move, in page 33, line 43, after "may," to insert "by regulation."
The object of this Amendment is not to hamper the Board of Trade or the Treasury in making these directions, but rather to assist the working of the Bill. The Bill provides that they "may" give directions, but I want the House of Commons and the public to have prior knowledge and information of what these directions are to be, firstly, in order that the public may know, and, secondly, in order that the House of Commons may have the right to discuss them and express the views of the public upon them. These views are likely to assist in the subsequent working of the Bill.
It may be said that there will be prior consultations with the interests concerned, which I regard as absolutely essential; but if there is one statement which has been made repeatedly during the proceedings on this Bill and which has become almost a classic it is, "We will give full consideration to what has been said." That phrase has occurred between 40 and 50 times during the Committee stage of this Bill so far, and it is piling up the responsibilities of the Department in relation to the next stage of this Bill and is not conducive to good legislation. If consultations had taken place prior to the introduction of this Measure, I believe we should have had less discussion on the Committee


stage. They have not taken place, and consequently I want to ensure, if we are not to have these prior consultations, that, before these directions are given, regulations will be put before us so that we may have an opportunity of discussing them before they become operative and the public may know what they are. Therefore, my Amendment is, I think, in the interest of the best working of the Bill.

Major Milner: In the first place I should like to ask why we have no representative of the Treasury on the Front Bench, because this is a matter for the Treasury itself. As I understood it, the Chancellor of the Exchequer gave an assurance at a previous stage, on a question I raised, that the term "direction" would be changed to "regulation." I am assuming, as a matter of course, that that undertaking will apply equally here. It is obviously just as important that those who insure under this part of the Bill should know precisely where they are, as it is for those who insure under the earlier part of the Bill. The particular matter to which the hon. Member for Stone (Sir J. Lamb) referred is extremely important because it affects the time at which payments are to be made where damage has been done. It is, therefore, most important that we should know what is to be done, and for the public to know at what time they may expect to receive payment. I had intended raising this matter on the Question "That the Clause stand part of the Bill" but it may be for the convenience of the Committee if an answer is given by the Government at this stage.
In my view payment should be very prompt indeed, I should like to see the time fixed at, say, 30 days after a claim is lodged. In any case I hope whoever replies to this Amendment will give us an assurance that this question will be dealt with by regulation rather than by direction, thereby insuring that publicity will be carried out by the Government. I feel that an enormous number of points are being piled up for later consideration. I should really like to see a White Paper setting forth all the questions upon which the Government have given promises for consideration, because it is impossible for us to keep a record of them, except by laboriously going through the OFFICIAL REPORT. We do not want to be put off now by a promise of consideration, to find the Government saying, when the time

comes, that they are very sorry about this or that. I believe that it is the temper of the Committee that there should be substantial Amendments on several points of principle. This matter has already been dealt with on an earlier part of the Bill and I hope we shall have the same assurance as the Chancellor gave in that case.

Mr. Lyttelton: I have had an opportunity of consulting the Chancellor of the Exchequer on this matter, and we are agreed that this must be brought into line with the previous undertaking he gave, and that directions under this Sub-section should be published. The Government will consider, between now and the Report stage, whether the directions should remain directions, or whether they should be regulations. With regard to the complaints by hon. Members that the Government promise too often to give matters consideration, I think it would hardly be expected that the Government would say that hon. Members' points were to be disregarded.

Sir J. Lamb: In view of the statement made by the President of the Board of Trade, I beg leave to withdraw my Amendment on condition that we have consideration of the question of regulation, because publication by itself is insufficient. The Committee does demand a right to express their own opinions on these directions before they become law.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Brigadier-General Clifton Brown: I beg to move, in page 34, line 33, to leave out from "damage," to the end of the Clause, and to add:
and interest at the said rate shall be payable periodically upon the twenty-fourth day if June and the twenty-fifth day of December in every year until the date when the payment is discharged upon such sum as the Board of Trade shall determine to be a reasonable estimate of the probable amount of that payment, any necessary adjustment being made upon the final determination and discharge of that payment.
Sub-section (4) states, in respect of war damage, that interest at the rate of 2½ per cent. per annum shall accrue on the payment from the time of the occurrence of that damage and "shall be payable when the payment is made." I should like to know the meaning of these words "shall be payable when the payment is made." The first part of this Clause relates to the Treasury and the second part to the Board of Trade. But is the President of


the Board of Trade the right person to assess damage to crops? Certainly the Board of Trade will have to consult with the Minister of Agriculture, but that is not stated. At any rate, the Minister of Agriculture will have to be consulted as to the damage. That will take time, and in the meantime the interest will accrue.
At present anyone who has a claim on the Treasury may have to wait months without hearing a word about it. It is a tricky business to get the right valuation, and a farmer may have to go without his interest for months. The Amendment suggests that, in the same way as interest on Government securities is paid twice a year, the amount of damage should be valued and interest paid at regular times. The farmer wants some assurance that, when damage is done, he will not be ruined before the Board of Trade and the Ministry of Agriculture have made up their minds, and that in the meantime interest should be paid on the amount of the damage.

Sir J. Lamb: I should like to support what my hon. and gallant Friend has said and to express my views very strongly on the question of valuation. Valuation of agricultural property is very different from the case of an ordinary business. This is a point that is not recognised by all. You may have a field of corn which has been ploughed, cultivated and sown, but is in an immature state of growth. If you value it at a particular time, you give nothing whatever for the whole value which may accrue later. The cultivation which has had to be done is done in the earlier part of the year, and, if it is spoilt by damage to the crops before they are fully matured, you find that the season has gone. That is a point which will have to be considered.

Mr. Lyttelton: The vital question is whether it is in the national interest to make the payments. Where it is, they ought to be made promptly, and no serious question of interest will arise. But it would be against the general intention to pay out interest on payments which have been deferred because they were not in the national interest. Wherever it is in the national interest to make payments they will be made as promptly as possible. When payment is not made, it means that to make payment then is not considered to be in the national interest.

Brigadier-General Brown: By whom—by the Board of Trade?

Mr. Lyttelton: Yes.

Brigadier-General Brown: After consultation with the Ministry of Agriculture, I presume?

Mr. Lyttelton: Certainly. On matters on which we have not specialised knowledge we naturally bring into consultation the Ministry concerned.

Mr. David Adams: It seems unreasonable that we should hand over to the Treasury or the Board of Trade the right to say whether we will defer payment or not when the withholding of money due may be inflicting very considerable hardship. If there is an obligation that interest shall be paid in all cases, it seems that this Clause is essential to the Bill.

Mr. Lyttelton: I think there must be some misunderstanding. There is no suggestion that the interest is not payable and does not accrue to the person to whom the payment is ultimately due to be made, but payments are not to be made unless the re-establishment of the goods or plant is in the national interest. Any other system would be distinctly inflationary. Where payment is not made it is because it is not immediately in the national interest and interest accrues to the person to whom the payment is due.

Amendment negatived.

Clause ordered to stand part of the Bill.

CLAUSE 45.—(Insurance under business scheme to be compulsory.)

Mr. W. H. Green: I beg to move, in page 34, line 47, to leave out paragraph (a).
The purpose of this Amendment is to make the business scheme relating to movable plant and machinery, office and shop equipment compulsory upon all traders. It raises in a very limited form a principle which I am sure the Committee will want to discuss at some length before the day is ended. This war damage scheme would operate three distinct principles. There is one class from which there is no exemption whatever, and the insurance will be completely compulsory. The second section is that with which we are dealing now, in which there are certain exemptions, and a very large section of the community may escape, if they so


desire, the payment of premiums and the necessity of insurance. Then there is the third section, which we shall reach shortly, which makes it entirely optional over the whole field of insurance of chattels and other personal belongings. Under the Clause as it stands a trader would be entitled to insure his property if it amounted to £1,000 or more. He need not insure it if it is less than a figure which I understand has been fixed at £1,000. The object of the Amendment is to compel all traders, whether this type of property reaches £1,000 or £20,000, equally to be amenable to compulsory insurance.

Sir I. Albery: Where does the hon. Member get the figure of £1,000?

Mr. Green: It has been stated in the Press, and I am assuming it for the moment, but the principle that I am arguing will not be affected, whether it is £1,000 or £2,000, or even £500. It makes an unfair discrimination between the multiple shopowners and the individual traders. A large multiple concern or a co-operative concern may have 500 branches, each of which has goods of under £1,000 value but they will be compelled to insure the whole of the stocks of their shops. Individual traders, however, with stocks of under £1,000 may be exempt from the operation of the Bill. I think that I am right in stating that the overwhelming majority of traders are small men whose stocks under this Clause would not reach £1,000. Consequently, they would not be compulsorily insured.
I regard this as a grave weakness in the Bill. If insurance is good for one it is good for all and should be made compulsory on all. In cities and towns where the risk of raiding is regarded as greater and damage to property more likely, all the traders will obviously insure. In a fair proportion of the country where the risks of bombardment are expected to be less, the traders will not insure. We cannot blame them, for if we were in similar circumstances we should react in the same way. Is it good business policy to rule out from the scheme the better risks and to compel the bad risks to come in? If all the traders with property under the terms of this Clause were compelled to insure, it is reasonable to suppose that the premium could be considerably reduced. Because in the main only the bad risks are to be embraced, a higher premium will have to

be charged. If the obligations of insurance are desirable they should be made compulsory on all. This point raises a principle of considerable concern to many traders because the Clause will penalise the bad risks owing to the good risks being exempt.

Mr. Lyttelton: I accept the suggestion that it is bad policy only to underwrite all the bad risks, but I cannot admit that that is the effect of putting on a limit of £1,000. We cannot ignore the costs of collecting the premiums if the insurance of all plant of whatever value were made compulsory. It would make very big inroads on, if not completely absorb, the extra premiums that would be gained. Otherwise, it is generally the small man whom one wishes to protect. It is conceded that the big businesses can generally look after themselves, and one of the reasons why the limit of £1,000 has been fixed is in order not to put the small trader under an obligation, which his circumstances may make it impossible for him to meet, to pay a high rate of premium. If he is a small man in a prosperous position, he will take out a voluntary insurance. It is because we want to protect him from the incidence of a high premium that the limit has been fixed.

Mr. Green: If the right hon. Gentleman's contention is correct that the collection of premiums from a large number of smaller traders is prohibitive and financially unsound, why does he allow them to come in voluntarily? Why not exclude all of them if the collection of premiums is too big an item?

Major Milner: I understand that the right hon. Gentleman does not desire to impose the payment of premiums upon those who have less than £1,000 worth of assets. What is the result of that? He is no doubt correct that the large firms may be able to help themselves. They can equally look after themselves if they suffer a loss. A poor man, however, cannot do so. If he is unable to bear a premium and he suffers damage, he will be completely ruined. It is essential that this insurance should be compulsory equally with the insurance of private chattels. It is wrong to avoid placing the burden of a premium on a small man in the hope that he may escape damage, whereas, in fact, a greater burden is being placed upon him by the risk he runs of being ruined without any opportunity of


compensation. There is no substance in the right hon. Gentleman's argument if, as he says, he desires to help the small business man. The way to help him is to give him a form of insurance for which he can afford to pay. The War Damage Commission will be placed under a difficulty if these traders can insure voluntarily. One may insure and a trader next door to him may not. Will the Government say to the latter, who, although he had the opportunity, was not perhaps able to afford it, or did not think it worth while, that he had the opportunity of insuring and that as he did not he could not get compensation? We have to be consistent in these matters. One of the difficulties in this Bill is that the Government throughout are inconsistent. In principle the idea is good, but in practice they have departed from the principles with which they started. There are opportunities in the Bill for evasion and of contracting out, and this is surely one of those matters in which the insurance should be compulsory so that there should be no opportunity for the small man to get into difficulties and to become ruined.

Sir I. Albery: I was not very much impressed by the argument which my right hon. Friend put up. I understood him to say that if a man was poor and could not afford to pay the premium he would have to suffer the loss of the whole of his goods. That does not seem to be at all in keeping with what I believe to be the general spirit of the Bill which was to spread the sacrifices over all and so to help the weaker brethren as well as the stronger brethren. I had expected my right hon. Friend to put forward a different argument. I thought he would probably say that if everybody came into the scheme there would be no adequate machinery for dealing with the position. That might have been a good argument, and if that had been the argument we should have been up against this position, that one would have to shut out the man who would come in of his own free accord. The only alternative would have been to make a definite limiting basis. If the machinery cannot be found to ensure everybody this protection, let us reduce the number by some limiting factor. That would be fair to all concerned. I cannot see that there is any logic in the reply.

Mr. Woods: Like the hon. Member for Gravesend (Sir I. Albery), I am amazed at the reply of the President of the Board of Trade. My hon. Friend the Member for Deptford (Mr. Green) put up a perfectly sound case, arguing that here was an opportunity to make the Bill much more equitable and to accomplish what is the main purpose of the Bill, that is, to spread the liability for meeting the risks over the whole country, irrespective of questions of vulnerability of areas or otherwise. It is obvious that under the Bill as it is whole areas of the country which regard themselves as safe will make no contribution to the fund—excepting those businesses which come over a certain figure—and naturally there will be vulnerable areas where all will come in. This means putting the burden upon the vulnerable areas and relieving the remote areas of their share. The President of the Board of Trade shakes his head, but that will be the effect.

Mr. Lyttelton: We are talking about limits of money and not geographical limits. The hon. Member is suggesting that there are proportionately more thousand-pound businesses in the vulnerable areas.

Mr. Woods: It is not a question of money. The object of the Amendment is to make this either compulsory for all or voluntary for all. If we leave it so that people can make their choice, obviously those who consider themselves as running little risk will not take advantage of the scheme, and in other areas most people will insure voluntarily, whereas the whole object of the Bill was to distribute the burden over the whole country. We have had instances of quite small businesses which are in difficulties in the vulnerable areas owing to the removal of the population. On the other hand there are in remote villages and elsewhere small prosperous businesses which will feel that it will be wiser for them to take the risk themselves and not to insure because the premium is so high. That would be a concession to those who are gaining whatever advantages are to be derived from the movements of the population. There was another point to which my hon. Friend received no reply. There are businesses which will be compelled to come into the scheme simply because they are grouped together. Take a co-operative concern in a small rural area. They


may have two or three departments in small self-contained shops, but because they are bulked together for Income Tax purposes and the figure exceeds £1,000, they will be compelled to come in, though their risk is no greater than that of competitors who will have nothing to pay. What reply we did get was to my mind a staggering one.
I do not know whether it was the intention to create the impression that the cost of collecting the premium would run to 0, 20 or 30 per cent. of the premium, but the statement was that the cost of collecting premiums would make it uneconomic. To my mind that is utterly ridiculous. No insurance concern would carry on like that. The cost of collecting premiums of this kind would be infinitesimal if the business were properly organised. There might have been a question as to the necessary staff being available, but too much emphasis cannot be laid on that, because we all know that up and down the country are many people who would be ready to undertake this type of work if only they could get it. It is all a question of organisation, and if we cannot organise to collect the premiums for this fund how are we going to win the war, which is a totalitarian war? If we cannot organise the country in such a way that we know where the risk is and distribute the burden of risk equally, then that is a confession of weakness which staggers me.

Mr. Butcher: I hardly think that the reply made by the President of the Board of Trade is in any way satisfactory. We can understand, as was urged earlier from the Terasury Bench, that just as a limit must be set upon the amount of damage which can be compensated, so a limit must be put upon the value of the assets which can be included in the scheme. The hon. Member for Finsbury (Mr. Woods) said the scheme must be either voluntary or compulsory. We may get this position, that a small trader in a town in a danger area who has already lost his business will pay his premium feeling sure that his assets are likely to be damaged and that anyhow his chances of surviving their loss and the loss of goodwill and custom are small; and, on the other hand, a trader in the district to which these customers have removed, in a safer part of England, may say, "My risks of damage are so small

that I shall not insure." The argument of the President of the Board of Trade failed entirely when he said, "Ah, but they can come in on a voluntary basis." The scheme will break down if everybody comes in on a voluntary basis. If, on the other hand, they keep out, then surely there is something to be said for reducing the limit below £1,000. Let us have a scheme where above a certain level everybody stands or falls together. If necessary, a rake-off of £250 or £500 could be allowed even to a giant company. But do let us have a datum line for companies or firms, whether in a safe or a danger area, and let all pay the same premium and share in the same potential benefits.

Mr. Woodburn: I hope the Minister realises that the Committee wish to make this Bill sound if that can be done, and that if we criticise it is not because of antagonism to the Government's proposal but because experience suggests to us that the Government may be wrong. I hope the Government do consider it in that light, and not as a contest between them and the other members of the Committee. The argument of the President of the Board of Trade means that there will be all sorts of anomalies throughout the country. There will be people with businesses just under the £1,000 limit and others which are just over, and judging by the experience of the Purchase Tax, where a limit was fixed in regard to printing establishments, such contrasts will cause no end of ill-feeling between one set of traders and another. On grounds of equity the same principle should apply to everybody. I gather that the question before us comes down to one of practicability. Can we get a scheme in which the cost of collecting will be less than is involved in the administration work?
I would like to make a suggestion to the Chancellor of the Exchequer. Many big insurance companies allow people to do their own collecting. For example, if one buys a diary for the new year one can insure one's life for £2,000 against travelling risks. Why should not the Government adopt some simple principle for the smaller business? They could make the scheme compulsory throughout, and could say that everybody must go to the Post Office and take out a policy for, say,


£200, £400, £600 or £800, and up to £1,000. Then the Government could go outside, when that limit was reached, and collect the premiums in some other way. They could make the scheme obligatory upon the owners of businesses, who would have to estimate the amount of insurance required and to take out policies accordingly. The Government would then have only to check and spot-check, in order to see that everybody complied with the law. It is assumed that people know the law; if the Government make this the law and use the Post Office as I have suggested, the matter will be done simply and, in the first instance, without administrative expense. It will bring much more money to the Government with much less expenditure of public money than some other methods, and will make the Bill more practicable in this aspect.

Lieut.-Colonel Sir Assheton Pownall: I have been connected with Lloyds for many years, and I have seen something of insurance matters. How can you possibly make hundreds of thousands of small shopkeepers come into the scheme compulsorily? What sanction will you apply to those who will not come in? I do not see how you can do it. The administrative cost would be not merely 30 per cent. but something like 30s. per cent. to collect all those small sums and to check up on persons who had not entered into compulsory insurance. If a man deliberately chose not to take up insurance, it would be difficult to find him. The hon. Member opposite suggested that the scheme could be worked through the Post Office. I rather like the idea, but I do not think it would be possible to do it even on those lines. It is very much the best plan to leave the scheme as it is. You can get hold of those whose stock is valued at £1,000 or more but, in my view, the small people are administratively impossible.

Mr. Woodburn: Why is the Post Office proposal impossible?

Sir A. Pownall: On the question of sanctions. It would be very difficult to find out who was and who was not insured without having inspectors.

Mr. Woodburn: We have inspectors.

Mr. Bellenger: As one with experience in this matter, I realise that there would be difficulty in collecting

premiums on small policies. The hon. Member who has just spoken is right. Where you had small insurances the administrative cost might be greater than for big insurances. Is that the real reason why the President of the Board of Trade proposes to fix the limit at£1,000? This Bill cannot be compared with insurance as the hon. Member who has just spoken explained it, but must be looked at from an entirely different point of view. If there would be great difficulty in insuring for the small amounts, would not that difficulty arise also if people came in voluntarily? There must be something more behind the proposed limit than the explanation given us by the President of the Board of Trade, and I invite him to be frank with us. The scheme is allied to the small insurances on goods and chattels with which this House, and vast interests outside, are concerned. The President of the Board of Trade should take us fully into his confidence.
In this scheme, the agents for the collection of the premiums will be Lloyds and the fire offices. They have the machinery already in existence, although, like every other business concern, they may not be able to work with the precision of pre-war days owing to smaller staff and for other reasons. I ask the President of the Board of Trade: Is he acting upon their advice in refusing what we are asking? Is it the fire insurance companies and Lloyds who—I note that the President of the Board of Trade says that it is not upon their advice. On whose advice is it that he is giving us this limitation? The President of the Board of Trade has not been frank with us. I do not want to labour the point but I suggest that he must give us a better reason than he has advanced before he can convince us.

Mr. David Adams: We all agree that the design of the Bill is the protection at all points of the national interest. It must be clear that the vast majority of small businesses are below the £1,000 limit and that if they are excluded, the national interest may suffer very materially, in the event of great strafing. I am entirely at a loss to understand why the Post Office could not be used as has been suggested. It is utilised for much more elementary matters than the collection of premiums. We want an explanation of this matter. I think it would be a solution of the diffi


culty if the post offices were used for the collection of premiums. Everybody knows that we are an exceedingly law-abiding nation, and that, if shopkeepers were advised that they had to insure, only those shopkeepers in a distressed condition would not take advantage of the opportunity and would not fulfil the obligation to insure their properties. The statement that the cost of collection would make the scheme difficult and too costly, and beyond the value of the money collected, seems extraordinary, since collections are being made of smaller amounts and the cost of the collection is absorbed in the amounts collected. We ought to protect the lesser fry in the business world of the nation, and the obligation to insure should be made compulsory, with a view to protecting not only the people concerned by the nation at large.

Mr. Lyttelton: The hon. Member for Bassetlaw (Mr. Bellenger) suggested that I ought to be frank with the Committee. I think there must be a little misunderstanding about the question of collection. I use the phrase to include administration. There is no difficuly in the actual act of collecting; the Post Office could do that. But there is a great deal of difference between that and assessing the value of a man's plant. I am sorry if the phrase "collection of premiums" should have deceived hon. Members or led them to think that I was deceiving them. There are about 500,000 to 600,000 traders who would fall under the £1,000 premium and whose plant would have to be valued. Most hon. Members who have spoken on this Amendment have referred primarily to shopkeepers and to commodities which are not the subject of discussion at all. This is a business scheme which relates to what is commonly called plant. The checking-up of insurances in regard to 500,000 or 600,000 small traders is an immense task, and the cost of administration below the figure of £1,000 would probably be uneconomic. There is one point I would like to make concerning the small trader. We say that a small trader, if he is in a safe area, should not be put out of business by having to pay a premium which he cannot afford.

Mr. Woodburn: May I interrupt the right hon. Gentleman? Are we to assume that in respect of all businesses over £1,000, before the person can pay his premium the State is going to conduct a

detailed valuation of the person's property? Is it not the case that in every business over £1,000 the person himself has to judge the value of his property first of all and to take out a premium on that value? The question of checking the value will arise only when damage is done, and surely the Government do not expect everybody to suffer damage. Therefore, the question of assessing the claims concerns only those who will suffer damage, and they will be a very small number indeed. I suggest that the first question is the getting of the premium. There is no reason why the Government should worry about a person who undervalues his property, as there is a Clause which punishes him if he does so. This should be a sufficient protection to the State.

Mr. Silverman: I find considerable difficulty in following the explanation given by the right hon. Gentleman. It does not seem to be the same explanation as we had before. Most of the Debate on this Amendment has proceeded on the basis that the difficulty was one of the collection of premiums. I now understand the right hon. Gentleman to say that that is no difficulty at all. The suggestion made by my hon. Friend seemed to the Minister to be a good and practicable one. If it were not, he appeared to think that it would be perfectly easy to think of another. What he now says is that the difficulty will arise in the administration —the inquiries and investigations and so on. The right hon. Gentleman must admit that the State has never found it to be an insuperable difficulty in the administration of the Poor Law, the Unemployment Assistance Board, Old Age Pensions inquiries or National Health Insurance, nor have the insurance companies found it an insuperable difficulty in industrial insurance which deals in much smaller sums than are contemplated here, and where the cost of administration is very much higher than anything contemplated in this proposal. I suggest to the right hon. Gentleman that if that really is his best reason for refusing to accept this Amendment, he will do himself, the Committee and the scheme greater justice if he thinks again.

Mr. Woods: The more one listens to the explanation of the Board of Trade, the more ludricrous the whole affair becomes.


We were told, first of all, that it would be too expensive to collect. We were then told that there was a misunderstanding, that it applies to plants and that there are about 500,000 of them. I suggest that the President of the Board of Trade should get into consultation with the Chancellor of the Exchequer. The Chancellor of the Exchequer could provide him with all the figures which are necessary for assessing these values. All these 500,000 firms will have to make returns under the law of the land. Even if they require exemptions, they will have to make returns. In those returns the claims will be specifically defined. It does not matter if a business concern has de

Division No.5.]
AYES.



Acland-Troyte, Lt.-Col. G. J.
Granville, E. L.
Reed, Sir H. S. (Aylesbury)


Allen, Col. J. Sandeman (B'k'd, W.)
Greene, W. P. C. (Worcester)
Reid, W. Allan (Derby)


Anderson, Rt. Hon. Sir J.(Sc'h. Univ.)
Gridley, Sir A. B.
Rickards, G. W.


Attlee, Rt. Hon. C. R.
Grimston, R. V.
Robertson, D. (Streatham)


Beamish, Rear-Admiral T. P.
Gunston, Capt. Sir D. W.
Robertson, Rt. Hn. Sir M. A. (M'ham)


Beaumont, Hubert (Batley)
Hammersley, S. S.
Ruggles-Brise, Col. Sir E. A.


Bennett, Sir E. N. (Cardiff, Central)
Hannon, Sir P. J. H.
Salt, E. W.


Blair, Sir R.
Harris, Rt. Hon. Sir P. A.
Samuel, M. R. A.


Bossom, A. C.
Hepworth, J.
Sanderson, Sir F. B.


Boulton, W. W.
Higgs, W. F.
Savory, D. L.


Bower, Comdr. R. T.
Hill, Dr. A. V. (Cambridge U.)
Scott, R. D. (Wansbeck)


Boyce, H. Leslie
Hopkinson, A.
Selley, H. R.


Brooke, H.
Howitt, Dr. A. B.
Shepperson, Sir E. W.


Cadogan, Sir E.
Hume, Sir G. H.
Simmonds, O. E.


Campbell, Sir E. T.
Hurd, Sir P. A.
Somerville, Sir A. A. (Windsor)


Cary, R. A.
Jones, Sir G. W. H. (S'k Newington)
Spens, W. P.


Charleton, H. C.
Jowitt, Rt. Hon. Sir W. A.
Storey S.


Cobb, Captain E. C.
Knox, Major-General Sir A. W. F.
Stuart, Lord C. Crichton- (Northwich)


Cooper, Rt. Hon. T. M. (Edin., W.)
Lamb, Sir J. Q.
Stuart, Rt. Hn. J. (Moray and Nairn)


Courthope, Col. Rt. Hon. Sir G. L.
Leach, W.
Sueter, Rear-Admiral Sir M. F.


Crookshank, Capt. Rt. Hon. H. F. C.
Leighton, Major B. E. P.
Tasker, Sir R. I.


Culverwell, C. T.
Levy, T.
Tate, Mavis C.


Dalton, Rt. Hon. H.
Liddall, W. S.
Thomas, J. P. L. (Hereford)


Davidson, Viscountess (H'm'l H'mst'd)
Little, Dr. J. (Down)
Thomas, Dr. W. S. (Southampton).


Davies, Major Sir G. F. (Yeovil)
Llewellin, Colonel J. J.
Train, Sir J.


Davison, Sir W. H.
Lucas, Major Sir J. M.
Ward, Irene M. B. (Wallsand)


Denman, Hon. R. D.
Lyttetton, Rt. Hon. D.
Wardlaw-Milne, Sir J. S.


Denville, Alfred
McEwen, Capt. J. H. F.
Waterhouse, Capt. C.


Duckworth, W. R. (Moss Side)
Maitland, Sir A.
Watkins, F. C.


Ede, J. C.
Makins, Brig.-Gen. Sir E.
Westwood, J.


Edmondson, Major Sir J.
Morgan, R. H. (Stourbridge)
Whiteley, W. (Blaydon)


Edwards, Rt. Hon. Sir C. (Bedwellty)
Morris, O. T. (Cardiff, E.)
Williams, T. (Don Valley)


Elliston, Captain G. S.
Morris-Jones, Sir Henry
Winterton, Rt. Hon. Earl


Entwistle, Sir C. F.
Paling, W.
Wood, Rt. Hon. Sir K. (W'lwich, W.)


Evans, Colonel A. (Cardiff, S.)
Peat, C. U.
Young, A. S. L. (Partiok)


Evans, D. O. (Cardigan)
Peters, Dr. S. J.
TELLERS FOR THE AYES.-


Foot, D. M.
Pickthorn, K. W. M.
Mr. Munro and Mr. Holdsworth.


George, Major G. Lloyd (Pembroke)
Pownall, Lt.-Col. Sir Assheton



Glyn, Sir R. G. C.
Pym, L. R.





NOES.


Adams, D. (Consett)
Griffiths, J. (Llanelly)
Silverman, S. S.


Adamson, W. M. (Cannock)
Hall, W. G. (Colne Valley)
Sloan, A.


Barr, J.
Hardie, Agnes
Smith, T. (Normanton)


Bellenger, F. J
Harvey, T. E.
Summerskill, Dr. Edith


Bevan, A.
Kennedy, Rt. Hon. T.
Thorne, W.


Chater, D.
Lunn, W.
Welsh, J. C.


Cove, W. G.
Maclean, N.
Wilson, C. H. (Attercliffe)


Daggar, G.
Mathers, G.
Windsor, W.


Douglas, F. C. R.
Milner, Major J.
Woodburn, A.


Dunn, E.
Mort, D. L.



Edwards, N. (Caerphilly)
Parker, J.
 TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—


Gallacher, W.
Pearson, A.
 Mr. Woods and Mr. W. Green.


Griffiths, G. A. (Hemsworth)
Silkin, L.

preciated its plant out of existence. The returns will go to the Income Tax Commissioners, and they will claim their statutory percentage of wear and tear of that plant and machinery. The Board of Trade will have those figures in their possession. In view of those facts, it seems to me that the whole argument which we have heard opposing this Amendment has completely fallen to the ground.

Question put, "That the words proposed to be left out, to the word 'such' in page 35, line 5, stand part of the Clause."

The Committee divided: Ayes, 113; Noes, 35.

Sir I. Albery: I beg to move, in page 35, line 5, to leave out "such sum as may be prescribed," and to insert "the sum of one thousand pounds."
I propose the insertion of the sum of £1,000, not because I am wedded to the idea of any particular sum, but because I want to know why no sum is inserted in the Bill. I do not want to take up the time of the Committee unnecessarily, so I will only ask the Government spokesman if he will say why no sum has been inserted in the Bill and, if it is proposed to name a sum, what that sum will be.

The Solicitor-General: It is very satisfactory to me to be able to tell the hon. Member that the sum the Government have in mind is £1,000. Great minds have evidently thought alike. On the other hand, the figure is being left out in order that the sum could be altered. It is proposed to prescribe a sum, but that does not commit us definitely and finally if, in the light of subsequent experience, it should be desirable to change it. Subject to that, the sum of £1, 000 is what the Government have in mind.

Earl Winterton: If I may say so without any undue disrespect, the argument we have just listened to is a somewhat forensic one. It does not answer the query as to what is the reason for not putting a sum in the Clause. Though it would be out of order to discuss the matter, I would like to call attention to the fact that in the whole of the Clause reference is made to "such sum as may be prescribed," and I should have thought that it would have been far better to put in the sum.

The Solicitor-General: I did endeavour to answer the point. I said that my right hon. Friend thinks that £1,000 is the right sum but that experience may show that that is not so. If a sum were fixed in the Bill, it would become part of the law of the Medes and Persians, and could not be altered. On the other hand, if my right hon. Friend has the right to prescribe a sum, although we do intend to prescribe the sum of £1,000, if later experience shows that, say, £500 or some other sum is better, we shall be free to alter it.

Sir Waldron Smithers: May I ask the Solicitor-General to tell the Committee in what way it is proposed to

prescribe the sum? Will it be by direction or by regulation to be laid on the Table, and, if the latter, will it be subject to Debate in this House?

The Solicitor-General: It is to be prescribed by the Board of Trade, and a regulation will be issued.

Sir W. Smithers: Will that regulation be subject to Debate in this House?

The Solicitor-General: Very likely not.

Mr. Bellenger: It seems that the Government want the best of all worlds. We have had a strong argument as to whether we shall have any sum at all, and the President of the Board of Trade has said "No." The Government thinks the sum should be one of £1,000. In that case, everything under £1,000 will be bad business, and the administration of all policies under £1,000 will be impossible. Along comes the Solicitor-General and says that we may find, after we have had a little experience, that the sum can be reduced to £500.

The Solicitor-General: Or up to £2,000.

Mr. Bellenger: Or up to £2,000. But I would take the point "down to £500," which is just the point we have been trying to put to the Government. Do the Government know their own mind; do they have the best advice? I suggest that at present they do not know the real reasons why they are inserting any figures at all. Some of the arguments which have been put by previous speakers have obtained added weight from the two statements made from the Front Bench opposite.

Mr. Woodburn: I support the Government on this matter. I think it is better not to specify a sum. We have just suggested that the sum should be nil, and, therefore, any process of gradually reducing the sum should be supported. When all cases of over £1,000 have been dealt with, and there is a staff ready, you will be able to take further cases, and gradually to reduce the sum, until I hope that administrative experience will lead to the conclusion that everybody can be included.

Sir I. Albery: In view of the fact that this Amendment is connected to some extent with the previous one, I beg to ask leave to withdraw it.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Major Milner: I beg to move, in page 35, line 12, at the end, to insert:
(d) a local authority shall be entitled if they tl-ink fit to be insured under the business scheme in respect of all or any of their goods but nothing in this Act shall operate so as to require a local authority to be so insured.
This Amendment is brought forward at the request of the Association of Municipal Corporations, who think that a local authority should have the option in respect of a business scheme of being insured or not. That seems to me a very reasonable proposition. A local authority may have many objects of art which it might not be desirable for it to put upon risk. It also has large funds, and is well able to insure itself if necessary. The corporation with which I was connected, at Leeds, ran its own insurance fund, and made a large profit upon it. It may be to the advantage of the ratepayers that a local authority should have the choice of insuring or not.

The Solicitor-General: This may be a reasonable Amendment from one point of view—I will say something about that presently—but from the point of view of the people undertaking the business of insuring—in this case, the State—it is a little awkward if the insurer is allowed to select only those things that he wishes to insure; because, other things being equal, he will select only the worst risks. But there is substance in the Amendment; and the Board of Trade have power, under Clause 45, to exempt either classes of goods or classes of persons from the obligation to insure. We understand that, as a whole, the municipal corporations desire to insure their utility services' equipment, but not such things, for instance, as the works of art in their art galleries. I can well understand that. [Interruption.] I mean that I can well understand that, because they have put those works of art underground, or have packed them away in cases. The Board of Trade, however, will consider this question, and, after consultation with the Minister of Health and with representatives of the local authorities, will see what they can do to meet the local authorities in the matter.

Major Milner: I am much obliged to my right hon. and learned Friend, but before I ask leave to withdraw the Amendment. I would ask him to make it clear that he does not suggest that

objects of art owned by local authorities are not in many cases extremely valuable, and well worthy of being insured.

The Solicitor-General: The Solicitor-General indicated assent.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Mr. Pickthorn: I beg to move, in page 35, line 12, at the end, to insert:
(d) notwithstanding anything in the Act contained, any bodies of persons (whether incorporated or not) who occupy premises for, or in connection with, the ads. ancernent of religion, education; science or research, shall not be compelled to insure under the business scheme the goods on such premises, but may at their discretion insure any or all of such goods (including such goods owned by persons living or employed in, or resorting to, the premises) either under the business scheme or under the private chattels scheme without limit of the sum insured.
Provided that for the purpose of this section goods which are kept normally on the premises. but have been temporarily removed elsewhere, shall be deemed to be goods on such premises.
The point of this Amendment is very similar to that of the Amendment which has just been withdrawn. I have in mind the difficulty of universities, and, rather more particularly, of colleges. The Bill attempts to distinguish between assets held for business purposes and assets held for domestic purposes—or for purposes of living, rather than of earning a living. The peculiar difficulty of universities and colleges is that they are both a kind of home and also a kind of business. It will be extremely difficult to draw a straight line between assets held in one regard and assets held in the other regard. The Solicitor-General suggested just now that if the insurer might himself choose which things he would insure, he would choose those things which run the heaviest risk, but not other things. I do not think that that difficulty arises very much in this connection. We all hope that at the end of ten or 15 years, or however long the period may be, this will be a land flowing with milk and honey, and then all these institutions will be re-endowed, but until then none of us thinks for one second that we ought to be given back those of our chattels which may be said to be luxuries or amenities. But we want to be sure that, so far as national resources permit, we shall be able to replace those of our chattels without which we cannot continue our functions. On the educational side, we think our difficulties would be best met


by an Amendment of this kind. If there is any hope of the principle of this Amendment being accepted, let me say that I am in no way wedded to the wording. In particular, the words within the second brackets and in the proviso might be omitted without doing any harm from my point of view.

The Solicitor-General: It is not on a mere question of words—if it were for no other reason than that, I could no doubt meet the hon. Member—but in principle we are not prepared to accept this Amendment. It seems to us that a university must be regarded for the purposes of this Bill as carrying on business, and we think it undesirable to exempt from compulsion persons carrying on business and to allow them to pick and choose as between what goods they will insure and what goods they will not insure. I agree with the hon. Member that the objection does not apply so strongly to universities as to ordinary businesses. A man carrying on business up and down the country would obviously select for insurance the goods in the more dangerous areas, and would not insure those in the safe areas. What I can say to the hon. Member is that, while we regard the university as carrying on business, and therefore liable to insure under the business scheme, we will use our powers under Clause 45 (1, c) to exempt from the obligation to insure certain classes of the non-essential equipment of universities, which will have to be very carefully defined. They will have to be worked out and defined, and in working out and drawing the distinction between the two sets of goods we shall, of course, no doubt, seek the assistance of the universities themselves. To that extent I can help the hon. Member, but further than that I regret I am not able to go.

Mr. Pickthorn: In a minute or so I shall ask the permission of the Committee to withdraw the Amendment, but the right hon. and learned Gentleman referred exclusively to universities. I do not wish to delay the Committee by explaining why this really affects colleges even more than universities, but I ask the Committee for the moment to take my word for it. I should like the assurance of the right hon. and learned Gentleman that, when he said universities, he included colleges and college authorities. I

also hope that before the regulations are drafted and the Board of Trade decides to use the powers under this Sub-section, some opportunity will be given to Members of this House who are particularly interested to see the drafts before it is too late to have any effect upon them.

The Solicitor-General: I am sure that my right hon. Friend would welcome the assistance and observations of the university Members, and with regard to colleges. I agree with the hon. Member, but there are a very large number of colleges. I must not be thought to have given an undertaking that we shall consult every single college—that is obviously impossible—but consultation with some people such, as I have said, as hon. Members of this House, or those who are similarly situated and can speak for universities and colleges, I am sure my right hon. Friend would gladly welcome in working out details of the regulations.

Mr. Edmund Harvey: The learned Solicitor-General has given some substantial satisfaction in the assurance that he has made, and it will be a real cause for satisfaction to the universities to know that their case will be very carefully considered, but I regret, as I am sure many of them will regret, the reason given for the refusal of the principle of this Amendment, namely, that the universities must be regarded as concerns carrying on business. Although it is true that the universities receive help, every student receives more than the value of his fees. The universities are carrying on at a great loss and are only able to do it through benefactions and grants. Therefore, although I am bound to accept the decision of the Government, I am sure that many of us cannot but regret the reason given for it by the right hon. and learned Gentleman.

Mr. Pickthorn: In view of what hasbeen said by the right hon. and learned Gentleman, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Mr. Rostron Duckworth: I beg to move, in page 35, line 12, at the end, to insert:
(d) a person (not being a railway company) who is the owner of a railway wagon or of a vehicle for the carriage of goods by road and by whom such wagon or vehicle has been let on hire or hire purchase shall be entitled but


shall not be compelled to be insured in respect thereof under the business scheme.
I have been asked by my hon. Friend the Member for Faversham (Sir A. Maitland) to move this Amendment in his absence. I am moving it formally, because the Amendment does not seek to obtain preferential treatment in regard to matters relating to the insurance of wagons or vehicles which are plying for hire or are working under some scheme of hire-purchase agreement, but rather to obtain from the Government some statement as to their idea of how they are to deal with these matters.

The Solicitor-General: I have already explained at an earlier stage that the intention was that the person who should insure was the one at risk in respect of businesses, and that is to say that wagons are insured under this scheme whereby the risk is on the wagon-owner. As he has to bear the risk, he ought to pay the insurance. But this is obviously a difficult question and there will have to be regulations defining exactly who is the person to insure. We have to avoid double insurance. I assure the hon. Gentleman that the observation made in regard to this topic will be most carefully considered in compiling the list. It cannot be done by this Bill; it is much too complicated. I do assure him that this matter will be carefully considered.

Mr. Leslie Boyce: I understand that the reason why the Amendment was put down was because the provisions of the Bill did not appear adequately to express the intention set out in paragraph 17 of the explanatory Memorandum. I understand that one of the objects of the Amendment, in fact the essence of it, is to elicit from the Chancellor of the Exchequer or the learned Solicitor-General a clear statement as to whether or not vehicles of this kind, which are the subject of a hire-purchase agreement, are to be voluntarily insurable or not. Would the learned Solicitor-General be good enough to say whether they would be voluntarily insurable or compulsorily insurable?

The Solicitor-General: Yes; if they form part of the business and come under the business scheme, they will be compulsorily insurable.

Mr. Woodburn: It depends upon the size of the business?

The Solicitor-General: Yes.

Mr. Duckworth: In view of the assurance which has been given by the learned Solicitor-General, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Amendment made: In page 35, leave out lines 13 to 19.—[The Solicitor-General.]

The Solicitor-General: I beg to move, in page 35, line 36, at the end, to insert:
() Where by virtue of the proviso to Subsection (1) or the proviso to Sub-section (3) of this Section any person is exempted, either generally or as respects any description of goods, from the obligation to insure under the business scheme, any goods insurable in relation to him under that scheme as respects which he is so exempted may. in such circumstances and to such extent as may he prescribed and so long as he is so exempted as respects those goods, be treated for the purposes of the private chattels scheme as if they were insurable in relation to him under that scheme.

Earl Winterton: I want to raise a complicated point, which, I hope, I shall succeed in making clear. On Part I, when we were discussing the question of timber, I raised the point as to the part of the Bill under which growing timber of a commercial character was to be insured. There was a reference in this part of the Bill to timber and I was referred, by an interruption by the Chancellor of the Exchequer to this part of the Bill. I have looked carefully through this Clause—and, of course, I must not anticipate the discussion which will take place later—and I can find no definition under farming business or under the definition in the Schedule which would bring growing timber of a commercial character within the ambit of the Bill. It could, of course, be brought in under Sub-section (2), which says:
Where any person is exempted from the obligation to insure under the business scheme…
It is obvious that if there is no obligation to insure timber under the business scheme, then a priori there is no right to have it insured under Part I of the Bill, and I would ask the Solicitor-General if he would be good enough to say under what portion of this Clause the growing of timber of a commercial character is insured. This is of immense importance to many private owners of timber and State farmers. I know that my right hon.
and gallant Friend the Member for Rye (Sir G. Courthope) will be able to confirm, from his knowledge of the other side of England, that a bomb on a single acre may do £2,000 or £3,000 worth of damage. I think it would be possible to insure under this scheme; if not, perhaps we could be told where it is possible.

The Solicitor-General: My Noble Friend has called attention to what he rightly says is a very important point, and I am grateful to him. I am sorry, however, that I did not know he intended to raise it now, otherwise I would have paid him the courtesy of taking pains to give a considered answer. As it is, I have applied myself as rapidly as possible to what he has said, and I think the answer is this: If he will be good enough to look at Clause 68, he will see there a definition of goods, and goods, of course, come under the Clause we are now discussing. The goods defined do not include certain things, such as money, negotiable instruments, etc., but, subject as aforesaid, they include all corporeal property not falling within the meaning of the expression "land" in Part I of this Act. I am sure that growing timber does not come under the definition of land, and it therefore seems to follow that it does come under the definition of goods. However, I shall have the opportunity between now and the next stage of the Bill of looking into the point raised, and if I am not satisfied with the answer I have given, I will see that the matter is dealt with in the way that it ought to be dealt with.

Earl Winterton: I am much obliged to my right hon. and learned Friend. I apologise for not having notified him privately about this matter, but it has only just occurred to me. May I suggest that he should confer with his right hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Rye (Sir G. Coutrhope), who represents the Forestry Commission in this House, on the point, if necessary, before the Report stage?

The Solicitor-General: If the right hon. and gallant Gentleman who represents the Forestry Commission will be good enough to confer with me, I shall welcome his assistance.

Colonel Sir George Courthope (Forestry Commissioner): I shall be very glad to

do so. This is a rather important point and should be cleared up.

Amendment agreed to.

Further Amendment made: In page 35, line 44, leave out "thereof," and insert "of the said prescribed multiple."— [The Solicitor-General.]

The Solicitor-General: I beg to move, in page 35, line 44, at the end, to insert:
() In relation to a person carrying on a farming business who is a tenant of the whole or any part of the farm, Sub-sections (3) and (4) of this Section shall have effect as if for any reference to the net assessment of the farm for the purposes of Schedule A for the time being in force there were substituted a reference—

(a) where the person in question is a tenant of the whole of the farm, to the annual rent for the time being payable in respect of the farm;
(b) where he is a tenant of part of the farm, to the aggregate of the annual rent for the time being payable in respect of that part of the farm and the net assessment of the remainder of the farm for the purposes of Schedule A for the time being in force."

Mr. Silkin: Could we have an explanation of this Amendment? Is it important or a drafting Amendment?

The Solicitor-General: It is not merely a drafting Amendment. It substitutes the rent of a farm for the Schedule A assessment of a farm. The criterion as to the amount of insurance is in the case where a farm is farmed by a tenant and not an owner to be the rent. The tenant would know what rent he had to pay, but he might find it difficult to ascertain what the Schedule A assessment was, as that is normally the concern of the owner rather than the tenant. It seems to us that this Amendment would make it easier for the administration of the scheme so far as the tenant farmer is concerned, since the criterion is within his own knowledge and directly concerns him.

Mr. Silkin: Is it not generally the case that the contribution will be higher? Rent is generally higher than Schedule A.

Sir J. Lamb: Is this an alternative or a substitution?

The Solicitor-General: A substitution.

Sir J. Lamb: Then in all cases a tenant farmer pays rent and not Schedule A? I would like to pay whichever is the


lesser, because sounds more reasonable. I should certainly wish to raise this question on the next stage of the Bill if I find that it means a bigger expenditure for the tenant farmer.

Sir Ernest Shepperson: Is not Schedule A the greater?

The Solicitor-General: This is rent.

Sir G. Courthope: May I point out that rent is almost invariably rather more than Schedule A, because sundry deductions are made from rent to arrive at Schedule A? Generally speaking, rents under Schedule B are approximately the same figure, and I think it has been overlooked that, normally, Schedule A is collected from the tenant who is the occupier and the amount of Schedule A is deduct-able by him the next time he pays rent. It frequently happens that it is the landowner who does not know what the Schedule A is, because he is not getting any rent.

Sir J. Lamb: In asking for further consideration of this matter, I would like to say that we ought to have had the advantage of hearing somebody on behalf of the Ministry of Agriculture. There are instances where rents are high and application is made to the landlord for reduction. The landlord, realising that the rent is high, has not altered it but has made deductions, so that the amount left is really the payable rent received by him.

The Solicitor-General: With regard to consultations with the Ministry of Agriculture, I may say that this Amendment was inserted by my right hon. Friend the Chancellor at the Department's request. The Amendment is certainly approved by them, although I need hardly say that we will gladly consult them about it. It is only fair that we should consult people about their own Amendments. That is the position, but I am told it not infrequently happens that there may not be Schedule A valuation in the case of a small tenant farmer.

Sir J. Lamb: That is why I would like the alternative and would like to take the lesser. Somebody representing the Ministry of Agriculture should be here to explain this matter. We are asking for information and cannot get it, and I must protest. The point should have further consideration.

Amendment agreed to.

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Clause, as amended, stand part of the Bill."

Sir J. Lamb: On a point of Order, Colonel Clifton Brown. Do you not intend to call the Amendments on the Paper in my name?

The Deputy-Chairman: The three Amendments in the name of the hon. Member are not selected.

Sir J. Lamb: Further to my point of Order. As these Amendments concern definitions, I should like to have some explanations on them. I put them on the Paper for the purpose of obtaining explanations.

The Deputy-Chairman: The hon. Member can make his observations on this Motion.

Sir E. Shepperson: I wish to put one or two questions to the Solicitor-General. First of all, I want to ask a question concerning Sub-section (5), and in doing so, I apologise because possibly other hon. Members find the answer to that question in Sub-section (5), where it is stated that:
Where under the prescribed form of policy, the maximum amount recoverable in respect of any goods is, irrespective of the sum insured. less than the value of those goods, Sub-section (1) of this Section shall have effect in relation to those goods as if that maximum amount were their value.
If there are any hon. Members who understand that Sub-section, I apologise for saving that I do not. In the case of agriculture, the premium as stated in the Memorandum is payable on double the Schedule A assessment. The question I want to ask is whether it is to be double the gross Schedule A assessment or double the net Schedule A assessment? Secondly, if the compulsory premium is to be payable on double the net Schedule A assessment, then, assuming that the Schedule A assessment is £500, so that the premium will be payable on £1,000, and assuming that the total value of the commodity is £2,000, will the farmer, if damage is sustained to the extent of £2,000, get £2,000 in compensation or only £1,000, because he has paid a premium only on £1,000 instead of on the total value of £2,000? This is one of the most important matters in the Bill as it affects agriculture.

Sir J. Lamb: I should like to ask the Solicitor-General to explain fully to whom Schedule A now applies. From the Amendment that has been made, I understand that it is now a question of the rent, if it happens to be higher than the Schedule A assessment, which the farmer has to pay. Who is to have the privilege of paying on the Schedule A assessment if it happens to be a little bit less? I want also to ask some questions concerning Sub-section (8) of the Clause, which contains definitions. With regard to paragraph 1 of this Sub-section, which states:
The expression ' farming business ' means a business carried on by any person …
It commonly happens that a father and a son may have a farm together, and therefore, the word "person" would not cover such a case. However, I believe that under some other Act there is a provision that in these cases the singular includes the plural. I should like to have a confirmation of this from the Solicitor-General. My second question concerns the word "land" in this sub-section. Very often a man takes a farm, consisting of the land, equipment and attached buildings, but also land to which there are attached no buildings. He farms the two as one holding, although there are two parts, and transfers the crops he grows on the one to the equipped holding for cattle consumption. When it says "the land", does that mean the particular land of that particular holding, and does it or does it not include the whole of the land he occupies?
I am asking technical questions, and again I protest that there is not a single representative on the Front Bench who can speak for agriculture. It places us in a very difficult position, when we go to the trouble of examining a complicated Bill like this, to find no one with active connections with agriculture on the Front Bench. We did not have a representative even when the Clause which virtually alters this Bill was accepted under my protest and that of other hon. Members. There was no one to explain the Amendment put down at the request of the Minister of Agriculture, and we are not told whether the farmer is to have the option of paying on the basis of rent or Schedule A, or whether it is to be on Schedule A only, or rent only in the various cases. This leaves us in great difficulty, and I protest again against the treatment we have received.
However, I ask for a reply to the questions I have raised, which, I think can be dealt with by a legal representative. I will repeat them. In the first case, does, the singular include the plural, and, secondly, if a man takes land for more than two holdings, but farms it for one holding, will he be allowed to have compensation for damage to one holding, although the crops were actually grown on the other holding?

Mr. Spens: This is the most important Clause in the Bill from the point of view of agriculturists, and I want, if I may, to link it up with Part I of the Bill. Very few agriculturists in the country appreciate that at the present moment, as far as Part I is concerned, only the bare ground is included as an insurable article. By the definition Clause, growing crops are separated from land. Under Part I, the person who owns the land will receive a payment which apparently he will be free to put into his pocket. He will receive a payment in respect of a huge chasm existing in a field, and the farmer, carrying on the business on the land, will have to include the growing crops in the business scheme and pay a premium very substantially in excess of the premium paid by the person owning a proprietary interest in the land. What is going to happen, firstly, in respect of the yawning chasms which exist over various parts of the country at the present time, and, secondly, in the case of the growing crops which were destroyed last autumn? As far as I can make out, there is nothing to link up what is to be done with the two payments. There is no obligation on the owner of the land to apply the money he receives in putting the land right. He can get away with it, leaving the unfortunate tenant in a position of receiving a payment for his growing crops, but the site on which the crops were grown being left in the same state as at the present time. It is very difficult to see the two Parts working together. I beg that further consideration shall be given to the question of how the two Parts are to affect an agricultural holding.
The next thing I want to know is this: Is there anything in the Bill that will enable an immediate payment to be made to those farmers who have had or will have bombs dropped on their growing crops, because there are numbers of cases in South-East England where considerable


damage has been done? The farmers have been told that they are going to get payment under this business scheme, and a statement appeared rather mysteriously in the papers last week-end that arrangements were being made by which advance payments might be made to farmers. I do not know where it came from. I can find no authority in the Bill for it, but I press that something of that sort should be done, because, if we are to get our growing crops next autumn, it is no use leaving land in the state in which some of it is at present and not giving the farmers the money with which they can get going again to get their crops at the earliest moment. I have a suspicion that the Chancellor of the Exchequer may not be unconcerned in this, but there is still no representative of the Ministry of Agriculture here. The most pressing question is for the farmers to know what they will have to pay, what they will get, and when they will get it. If we are to get productivity out of the land, they will have to get advance payments at the earliest possible moment. That may all be hidden in the scheme which will come under this and previous Clauses, but an announcement ought to be made at soon as possible and money made available at the earliest moment, so that the farmers can get to work to get their crops growing again.

Sir W. Smithers: I want, as a farmer, to ask the Solicitor-General two specific questions. If he could see the land around the house in which I live, he would see that it is pock-marked with deep craters. Who under the Bill will fill them up, and whoever fills them up, who will pay? I want to support the appeal of my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Sir J. Lamb). Unless we get a satisfactory answer from the agricultural point of view, I shall feel it my duty to ask leave to report Progress. I have scores of letters from farmers, some of them small farmers, who are doing their best to carry on. Their land has been damaged, and their fields have craters in them. They cannot afford to fill them up themselves, and I cannot find out authoritatively who is going to fill them up and who is going to pay for filling them up.

Sir J. Lamb: I raised this point on the Second Reading and was given an assurance from the Front Bench that early payment would be made. I believe that it was given by the Chancellor himself. It is important that early payment is made because damage may be done to a farmer's crops in the barn. In that case what is he to feed his stock on, because he cannot with his present credit buy other feeding-stuffs unless he receives payment? This is an important matter, and I hope that we shall again have an assurance that it will receive favourable consideration.

The Solicitor-General: I am a little frightened about saying that the matter will receive favourable consideration, because once to-day the hon. Gentleman who has just spoken made some animadversions on us for saying it too often. Let me try to deal with the series of questions which have been put. The hon. Member for Leominster (Sir E. Shepperson) modestly pretended that he did not understand Sub-section (5). We all know that he really understood it quite well, but there is some excuse perhaps for not seeing its meaning at first glance. I think that the explanation is this: The obligation under the Bill is to insure goods for their full value, but in certain cases a limit may be put on to an amount less than the full value. For example, the limit might be £100, and there should be an obligation in such cases to insure to that limit and not to the whole value of the goods. The hon. Member asked, with regard to Schedule A, whether it is to be gross or net, and the answer is net. The third question he asked was whether the sum to be recovered was what in insurance jargon would be called a first loss or an average payment. The answer is a first loss payment. That is to say, the farmer will get the actual loss which he has sustained. We shall not be able to say to him, "You are under insured and your own insurer, and will, therefore, get only a proportion of the loss." It will be in the nature of a first loss payment and the full amount will be paid.

Sir E. Shepperson: I am much obliged to my right hon. and learned Friend for his answer. It will be received with great satisfaction in agriculture.

The Solicitor-General: The second questioner was the hon. Member for Stone


(Sir J. Lamb).He asked whether "person" includes "persons." I can assure him that under the Interpretation Act the singular includes the plural. Therefore, the Amendment which was down in his name would be unnecessary. Then he gave an illustration of a farm being occupied, a part of it in the ordinary way and a part taken on; and the answer to that question is that all the land occupied in the business will be included.

Sir J. Lamb: Will my right hon. and learned Friend on the Report stage put in the word "any" or "all," instead of simply "the"?

The Solicitor-General: I am advised that the word "any" is unnecessary, but we will look into the matter to see whether any Amendment is necessary. A question with regard to holes in the ground and Idling up the craters, was raised by the hon. Member for Chislehurst (Sir W. Smithers), speaking as a farmer, and the hon. and learned Member for Ashford (Mr. Spens), speaking as a representative of one of the most important farming divisions in the country. I too am a farmer, and can speak to the hon. Member for Chislehurst as one farmer to another. It is, therefore, a case of deep calling unto deep. The hole in the land is dealt with under Part I and the growing crops come under Part 11. In Clause 50 there is power given to the Board of Trade to make payments to a person in respect of war damage occurring under either of the schemes. I hope that in practice we shall be able to use that power and see that farmers who suffer damage to their growing crops will be paid under the power conferred upon the Board of Trade.

Mr. Spens: I cannot see any power under Part 1 where there is a hole in the ground. It is no good giving a man an advance payment unless the hole in the ground is to be filled up, nor do I see any obligation on the recipient to apply the money to make good the damage.

The Solicitor-General: I am obliged to the hon. and learned Gentleman and to the hon. Member for Chislehurst for calling attention to this matter. I would rather not now jump into the hole in the ground lest I get buried, but I will see that the representations they have made are seriously considered, because it is an important point. I will bear in mind

the observations which they have made and talk it over with my right hon. Friend, and see that satisfactory arrangements are made. If I want the help of the hon. Members I am sure that they will meet me and discuss the matter.

Question, "That the Clause, as amended, stand part of the Bill," put, and agreed to.

CLAUSE 46.—(Power of Board of Trade to obtain information.)

Mr. Silkin: I beg to move, in page 36, line 32, after "Kingdom," to insert:
to which this Part of this Act applies.
This Clause gives wide powers to representatives of the Board of Trade to enter premises and ask for the inspection of books and so on. The powers ought to be limited to those premises to which this Part of the Bill applies, and the representatives should not be allowed to enter premises to which it does not apply.

Mr. Lyttelton: The Board of Trade will require in certain cases to investigate the correctness of the statements of persons who claim exemption as being under the limit. The hon. Member's Amendment would not permit the Board of Trade to investigate whether a claim for exemption was justified. I can only say that in the administration of this particular Clause we shall ask for an investigation only when the circumstances appear reasonably to justify us. If the Amendment were accepted it would be impossible for us to investigate these border-line cases.

Mr. Silkin: In view of that explanation, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Amendment made: In page 36, line 37, after "may," insert "reasonably."—[Mr. Lyttelton.]

Clause, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.

CLAUSE 47.—(Limitation of indemnity provided under private chattels scheme.)

The Deputy-Chairman: I ought to explain to the Committee the procedure which is to be adopted with Amendments to this Clause. It is a little unusual but is, I believe, for the convenience of the Committee. The principle of compulsion should be decided first and subsequent Amendments to the Clause can be dis-


cussed more conveniently when the question of compulsion is out of the way. It has therefore been decided to call the Amendment in the name of the hon. Member for Gillingham (Sir R. Gower) and other hon. Members.

Mr. Rostron Duckworth: I beg to move, in page 37, line 34, to leave out from the beginning, to the end of line 13, page 38, and to insert:

(a) Subject to the provisions of this section where, after such date as may be prescribed any person resides in the United Kingdom then, if at any time, in respect of private chattels which are insurable in relation to him under the private chattels scheme, there is not in force a policy of insurance issued in accordance with that scheme in respect of his chattels for a sum not less than the value thereof for the time being, as hereafter prescribed, he shall be guilty of an offence under this section;
(b) Any person guilty of an offence under this section shall be liable on summary convinction to a fine not exceeding one hundred pounds and to a further fine not exceeding fifty pounds for every day on which the contravention continues.

The Amendment, the phraseology of which is taken from the Clause relating to compulsory business insurance, makes insurance of personal chattels compulsory up to £1,500 or £2,000. There is a precedent for this kind of compulsory insurance. It is the farmer's insurance of stock and crops, under the business scheme. Any such scheme would probably meet with a vast volume of public approval. It would be equitable and fair, and, being compulsory, would lower the rate of interest. Fire-insurance valuations, where they exist, could be accepted, since they are accepted now in every ordinary scheme, and personal chattels not yet insured would be subject, as now, to the ordinary investigation precautions.

Mr. Woodburn: I support the Amendment, which agrees with a somewhat similar Amendment which I have upon the Paper. I suggested upon the Second Reading of the Bill that the Clause violated the whole purpose of the Bill, in covering insurance generally. The discussion which followed the Second Reading proved that it was an agreed Measure, and that there was agreement that this Part, as well as other Parts of the Bill, should be compulsory.
The Bill has two great advantages. The first is that it gives an assurance to people

throughout the country, that at this time of calamity, if calamity should fall upon any person, he will not be asked to bear it alone, and that we are all to stand together. That is the essential principle behind the Bill. It has another great advantage from the national point of view, inasmuch as it definitely reduces purchasing power by transferring to the State money at present in the pocket of the private individual. It transfers that purchasing power to the Government, which will not require to expend that purchasing power until after the war. Therefore, as has been pointed out, it secures to some extent the aims of what became known as Mr. Keynes's plan.
The premium of 30s. means that insurers under this part of the scheme pay approximately four times the premium that has been fixed under the property part. That will be a deterrent. The high premium will make people hesitate about accepting insurance voluntarily. To a large extent, therefore, insurance will be confined to the bad lives, to people who do not feel safe and to people who are not safe. The argument used by the Chancellor and others in favour of the scheme took two forms: first, that it was not in the national interest to insure private individuals for private people's purposes, and, second, that it was not practicable. I wish to support this Amendment on three grounds. First, it is morally unjustifiable to leave the burden of war damage to be borne unfairly by those suffering calamity or those living in apprehension of such damage, while those who feel safe and who may he safe are exempted from any responsibilities under the Bill. In other words, those in the danger areas have not only to be unsafe and suffer danger, but they have also to pay for being unsafe, while the people who are fortunate enough to be in scattered areas are relieved not only of the first two difficulties of actual danger and potential danger, but also of the difficulty of contributing towards alleviating the general danger.
The argument advanced against this Amendment was that it was wrong for the State to be expected to undertake as a national duty the replacement of someone's investment in Chippendale furniture. That appeared to me to be a weak argument. I would like to look at it from the opposite point of view. Anyone who can afford such articles ought to pay a contri


bution to the State, and this Bill fails from the national point of view by not calling upon such persons to pay a contribution. The Committee will want better reasons than they have so far been given before they will be convinced that this part of the scheme should be voluntary. By making this a voluntary scheme, the State would surrender a fair and justifiable levy on people who can afford to pay—those described by the Solicitor-General as having Chippendale furniture. One of the greatest advantages of a tax is that it is going to be paid willingly and will not be avoided, and in this case the Chancellor would have that advantage because it would be willingly paid. My next ground is that the scheme on a voluntary basis would be impracticable. That is the argument which was put against the compulsory scheme. I assert that this scheme would be impracticable on a voluntary basis. If we are to insure people's houses and property, in many cases people's houses will be replaced but not their furniture. If a person is not insured because of laziness or indifference or any other reason, we shall be faced with a large number of people thrown on the streets with no homes, and they will be provided with houses but with no furniture to put into the houses. The State will not find it practicable to refuse to relieve these people, and the position will be that the State will have to replace the furniture without having had a contribution from the people who receive it. As always happens, the burden will fall upon the willing horse.
I would like to know whether this scheme is to depend upon a lot of canvassers going round to people in the towns and the country and asking them to insure. If not, I am satisfied that large numbers of people will never know what the scheme is about. This Bill has been going through the House of Commons for a long time, and I know a lot of people who have not the slightest idea what the Bill is about. I question very much whether, after the scheme is passed, they will be sure whether they can insure or not. But if it should be a question of canvassers travelling around the streets, to come back to the point made by the President of the Board of Trade, the cost of administration will be fantastic. I would respectfully suggest that if this scheme is to be on the same basis as some of the great industrial

schemes, where 60 per cent. of the premiums were absorbed in management and other expenses, it will be a worse tragedy than having no scheme at all. I respectfully suggest that it should be put on a perfectly practical basis and made compulsory, so that everyone would know.
During the Second Reading, the House, generally, as I judged it, took an opposite line to the Government and were in favour of this scheme being made compulsory. But, of course, that brings us up against the Chippendale furniture problem, to take the Solicitor-General's example. Does it mean that we are going to insure a house with all kinds of ornamentations, all kinds of art collections, household museums and things of that nature? I think the Committee generally will say "No," and if it is to be a practicable scheme, it must therefore eliminate that problem and bring it down to some kind of reasonable assurance. At the present moment, is it justifiable and practicable to insure every household in such a way that, in the event of destruction, the householder will have the right and opportunity to have his home reconstructed? I respectfully suggest to the Committee that it is in the national interest to reconstruct the homes of this country, inside as well as outside.
The objection which has been made throughout the discussion of this Bill is that, although the Government realised that this should be made compulsory, they had themselves already thought out every scheme and had not found one which would work. They had therefore had to adopt the scheme contained in the Bill. The challenge has been made that if the Committee criticise what the Government propose, the only acceptable criticism will be one which produces a practicable alternative. I have therefore devoted a little time to trying to think out a practicable alternative, because I realise that it is easy to be destructive in criticism and difficult to produce a constructive alternative. To do this I asked myself how we were to fix the value of the chattels to be insured. I propose in that connection that we should take a principle that the Government have already agreed to. The rest of the Bill is to be based on the rateable value. That gives us a definite figure to start with, but is there a proportion between the rateable value and the essential furniture of


house? I have taken several examples, and have worked out that if you insure for five times the rateable value, you get an approximation to what is the essential furniture for the type of house insured. If you take a house with a £40 rateable value and multiply that by five, you get essential furniture to the extent of £200. I suggest that if a person with a £40-a-year house had his house destroyed, it would at least give him a start with a new home if he had £200 of essential furniture supplied. I took another extreme case—an actual example—of a man with a house assessed at £300. I put it to him: Would five times that amount replace his home so far as essential furniture was concerned? He agreed that from his point of view that would be a very reasonable proposition, and that he would not expect to have replaced the £3,000 or £4,000 worth of furniture which happens to be in his particular home.
There we have a definite sum to which it can he attached. It entails no valuation other than the one already suggested, and gives a practicable basis for a compulsory scheme. The second part of that suggestion is also a principle to which the Government have given their agreement, because in the case of the non-contributory scheme, when people's houses are destroyed they agree only to replace essential furniture. I am quite sure that the people who are poor will accept that as an emergency regulation, and that so also will the people who come in the second part of the scheme. It would be fair to go on the valuation, and to work out a premium in that way. I am suggesting five times the valuation; but the Chancellor may prefer to fix it at four times, or whatever he thinks best. I am accepting the Chancellor's challenge, which he made on previous occasions; and I say, there is a scheme which he can criticise if he finds it unworkable, but I believe that it would work. I have endeavoured to solve the problem by putting forward this scheme, which I believe can be easily understood by everybody, and applied without any great difficulty. On the grounds of wisdom, of expediency, and that we ought all to stand together in this fight, I put my proposal before the Chancellor, in the hope that he will make the scheme compulsory.

Mr. Denman: It is with some regret that I find myself unable to support this Amendment, because, in principle, I was strongly in favour of this kind of thing a couple of years ago. But now it is at least two years too late. To set up a system of compulsory insurance of private chattels needs a peace-time atmosphere, with all the normal apparatus of insurance, which functions satisfactorily in peace-time. It would he a gross misuse of man-power and a waste of time and material to indulge in this vast scheme when we are perhaps within a few months of the crisis of our history. If the hon. Member had suggested that the Government, having rejected the principle of compulsory insurance two years ago, should have stuck to their guns and reiterated their decision to await the end of the war, and then to indemnify people for losses sustained, I should have had a great deal more sympathy with him. That would avoid all such problems as that of the valuation of goods, and we could get on with our job of waging the war. The whole idea of universal compulsory insurance is a peace-time idea, and not a war time idea.
There is a further objection in the rate of premium involved. The hon. Member suggested that the rate here proposed was four times that of the rate on property; but surely he is misinformed on that point. On Part 1 it was asserted, and never contradicted, that the amount of the levy was roughly 3 per cent. of the value of the property on which compensation might be paid. On top of that levy, there was to be a State subvention of an equal amount. That was equivalent to a premium of 6 per cent. If the premium of 6 per cent. for the risk period —which, of course, covers a longer period than the annual premium of 30s. per cent. for furniture covers—is reasonable for buildings of all kinds, surely no one will suggest that 30s. per cent. for the contents of domestic buildings is excessive. I have little doubt that, under this voluntary scheme, if the 6 per cent. is a truly reasonable figure, the 30s. per cent. will prove to be too little rather than too much. I hope that experience will show that 6 per cent. is too high, but the Government have more information on that point than any other person can possible possess. I suggest, therefore, that if we do not go back to the Government's


previous scheme of indemnity at the end of the war, we must accept this principle of voluntary insurance which is proposed in the Bill.
There is no other alternative, but there is one extremely important point which has not been mentioned—that these policies are fixed loss policies. If they had been policies with an average clause, I would have been strongly opposed to them, because with an average clause you would require a general scheme of valuation, that is to say, valuation by all those who wish to insure their chattels. That would be turning us from a nation of warriors into a nation of furniture-valuers, which is not what we want. If you have your first loss policies, people take out exactly as much indemnity as they require, to the maximum. That will mean that a great many people in the safer areas, where the premium of 30s. on total value is certainly excessive, will take up a small amount of insurance which will give them a specific amount of indemnity in the case of any damage from bombs. I believe that this scheme, little as I like it, is the most practicable to meet the case before us, and I hope that the Government will strongly resist the Amendment.

Sir W. Smithers: I disagree respectfully with the greater part of the speech of the hon. Member for Central Leeds (Mr. Denman). It has been said that this is really a peace-time, and not a war-time Measure. But surely it is because there is a war, and because we are being bombed, that we want everybody, compulsorily, to insure their chattels. The hon. Member talked about the premiums being excessive, but if insurance were made compulsory and universal it could be greatly reduced. In fact, I have been told by experts that if there were a universal premium, it might easily be brought down to 10s. per cent. I had an Amendment on the Paper which was, rightly. not called, but which was in effect practically the same as the Amendment now being considered, and the hon. Member for Clackmannan and Eastern (Mr. Woodburn) really made my speech for me. I support all that he has said. I would add, however, that the Prime Minister when he foreshadowed this Bill in a general speech used words to the effect that we were all in this war and that we all stood together, and I think it is unfair that

a family living on the moors in Yorkshire or on Exmoor, or in Somerset, or in one of the safer areas should not be compelled to insure while those who live in the heavily bombed areas are compelled to insure. The official answer will probably be that compulsory insurance under the chattel scheme is not workable. [An HON. MEMBER: "Hear, hear!"] There is only one "Hear, hear!" If the Treasury and the Board of Trade between them cannot devise some scheme to make this workable compulsorily, then words fail me.

Mr. Denman: Has my hon. Friend calculated the number of man-hours that will be occupied in producing policies if his precious universal scheme is accepted?

Sir W. Smithers: I have not had the opportunity of computing the number of man-hours.

Mr. Denman: That point is material in war time.

Sir W. Smithers: The hon. Gentleman has had his say and perhaps he will allow me to have mine. When you have millions of people insured under various schemes like the National Health, and unemployment schemes and so forth, and insured with trade unions, for small amounts, it does seem to me that it should not he beyond the wit of man to devise some plan whereby people would be compelled to put a stamp on a card once a month or once a quarter and thus contribute compulsorily to an insurance scheme which would cover their chattels. To give a broad outline of what I mean, the people of the country might be divided, roughly, into three or four groups. People receiving old age pensions, for instance, should get their insurance policy for nothing, and people coming within the National Health Insurance class should pay, say, 4s. or 5s. I am not in a position to say what the premium ought to be exactly; that could be worked out by the Treasury experts who have the details and figures before them. Then there is the class of people who pay Income Tax. They should be asked to pay, say, 7s. 6d.or 10s. I believe that a scheme could be worked out on these lines, through the Post Office, by means of stamped cards in the same way that other insurance schemes are now working, and I hope the Committee will not be afraid to press the Government, to the limit, to make this chattel scheme compulsory.

Sir Frank Sanderson: I support this Amendment. I have an Amendment on the Paper which incorporates the proposal now before the Committee. On the Second Reading of the Bill I made reference to this particular Clause and what I said then comprises all the points I desire to make. If I may, I would like to read one paragraph from the speech which I made then. The Attorney-General made some remarks on the difficulty of valuing Chippendale chairs and other valuable articles; I stated then that I did not think that had any bearing whatever on the Clause in question and the paragraph I would quote is this:
I find it difficult to advance any argument why the insurance of industrial moveable property is to be made compulsory, while insurance of personal chattels is to be voluntary. The latter should also be compulsory. Otherwise, people living in remote places remain outside the scheme, whereas the whole people of the country should equally contribute to a national effort. It also means that prudent householders in vulnerable areas who feel obliged to cover themselves will have to pay a larger premium than would be the case if the risk were spread over the whole country The premiums on household effects will be a very heavy burden to many people of moderate means and this will be increasingly so unless the risk is spread throughout the country thus reducing the amount of the premium."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 17th December, 1940; col. 1105, Vol. 367.]
That is the case I made in the Second Reading Debate. I think this is a proposal which commends itself to the great majority of hon. Members, and I am convinced that it has the support of the country as a whole. The Bill is presumed to treat all the people of the country on an equitable basis, but surely, there can be no reasonable argument why the insurance of buildings should be regarded as a national risk and the insurance of goods and chattels be regarded as something which does not affect the country as a whole. If the insurance of goods and chattels were made compulsory, it would very considerably reduce the premium. One of my hon. Friends said that in that case the premium would be probably only 10s. per cent.; I am advised that, if the scheme were made compulsory, the premium would be less than 10s. per cent. I think the Government might inform us what they understand the premium would be if the scheme were made compulsory.
On grounds of equality for all classes in the country, the benefit of full com-

pensation ought to be granted to all alike. If the premium were regarded as too heavy a charge for some individuals, the usual industrial insurance practice of "Conditions of Average" could be applied. As far as I can see, there would be no difficulty in doing this. The householder determines for what amount he desires to insure his goods; he has to prove the values for which he has insured his goods, and if he is able to do that, he receives full compensation. The onus of proving value of goods insured, rests upon the insurer, and a full and specific schedule has to be given. This schedule of the Bill as it now stands only provides for the small man, and I maintain the selection of risk is against the interests of the Government. Whether a man has a property worth £5,000 or £10,000, he ought to be able to insure those goods and chattels in just the same way as a man who has goods worth £500 or £1,000. The selection of risk is against the interests of the Government—an error of under writing to be avoided—and does not give equal protection to all or the option of such protection. I hope the Government will give this matter serious consideration. If they are not able to meet us to-day, I hope that between now and the Report stage they will take good counsel; I hope they will take counsel with the insurance companies who, I am sure, would be able to give them sound advice, particularly on the point I have made, namely, the low premiums for which it would be possible to insure goods and chattels if the scheme were compulsory and not voluntary.

Mr. Garro Jones: I propose to make only a few general observations. First, I hope the Government will not entirely close their minds to the views which have been expressed, particularly by my hon. Friend. We ought to keep in our minds constantly the fact that this has never been claimed to be more than an improvised Measure, and that we cannot expect perfection in the Bill at this stage. On the other hand, we do not expect the Government to reject suggestions made for its improvement. We all know that this Bill is to run for only a short period, and that the Government are already engaged in preparing a supplementary Measure. This Bill comes to an end in August next, and, although the premiums will continue to be collected, the


damage incurred after that date, as I understand it, is not covered; therefore the Government must be preparing some new proposal. Nobody can support this Amendment on the principle that we are to stand together. That would be a fallacy, because if we are all to stand together and repair all damage done, there would be no need for an insurance scheme at all—it would merely be a case of the Government recompensing all parties for whatever damage they suffered, on proof of that damage. This scheme does, however, require some further consideration. I ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer to read what is stated in the Explanatory Memorandum. It states:—
As insurance under this scheme is voluntary, it is impossible to estimate what premiums will be received or what payments are likely to be made in respect of claims, or what administrative expenses will be incurred.
What sort of insurance scheme is that? There is no provision made for the Government to replenish the fund. It may be that, when people have paid their premiums, they will not receive compensation for the damage done. I hope the Chancellor will explain to what extent compensation will be paid. I admit there is a certain limit, but a man will not receive compensation to the full amount and he will not know what proportion will be compensated for the premium he has paid. We are pretty sure about one thing, and that is that we shall get all the bad risks under this scheme. Not only shall we have the bad risks, but all the risks which have already passed from the stage of risk to a stage of actual damage, because all damage which has already been suffered can be retrospectively insured under these proposals.
How are we to deal with this complicated situation? Far be it from me to put forward a comprehensive scheme. I have endeavoured all along to impress on the Government in my few remarks on the Second Reading and on Amendments in Committee that the first thing to do is to provide for the rehabilitation of reasonable necessities. The main argument used against this Amendment has been that if it were made compulsory the cost of administration would be too high. To avoid that, why not take some half-way house between the payment of £10, £20, or £30, all ready-made to replenish furniture on the one side and the insurance

scheme in respect of the £1,000 to £1,500 on the other. Is it impossible to say, for example, that without any insurance at all, upon proof of damage done, damage up to £100 or £200 will be covered by the Government? I appeal to the Chancellor to do something to ensure that people who lose furniture and goods up to that amount will be covered without any insurance premium at all. I consider that one of the most powerful arguments that has been put forward and I hope it will be taken into consideration by the Government.

Sir H. Williams: I hope the Government will not oppose the Amendment in terms which mean that they do not intend, ultimately, to incorporate a compulsory scheme in the Bill. I know they will say that it is administratively difficult, but that is not an argument. If I were advised by officials that something was difficult and that I ought not to do it, my inclination would be to say, "If you cannot find a solution, I will get new advisers." I am certain that a compulsory scheme can be administered. They say it is difficult to enforce. The British are a law-abiding people. If you pass a law saying, "You have to do so and so," 95 per cent. of the people will do it without any enforcement at all. Why, because it is difficult with the other 5 per cent., should you abandon something that is good?
The premium of 30s. is oppressive and unnecessary. I have a document here, which I will hand over to the President of the Board of Trade, given me by the managing director of a company which has about £2,500,000 worth of furniture out on hire-purchase. In six months, I think, probably—being an optimist—the worst six months that we are likely to have, the claims reported to them came to £17,000. If you assume that you are going to cover all your damage under one year's premiums, 30s. is justified. This is probably as good an illustration as you can get anywhere of damage to private furniture. No one who thinks he is reasonably safe would pay a shilling on those terms. It is an oppressive premium. But if this is to be insurance on the assumption that you continue the premiums until the liabilities have been discharged, they will go on the five-year basis.
It is a most ungenerous scheme because the Chancellor and his advisers will not face the issue. Why not say to the nation, "You are going to have a system of insurance; everyone will be compensated generously and premiums will continue until the obligation has been discharged"? This is a half-baked, rotten kind of Bill. [Interruption.] Everybody I know wants to be compensated. You cannot compensate them unless you have the money. You cannot get the money unless you carry on the premiums for a sufficiently long period. I suppose that my constituents have suffered nearly as much harm as anybody else. I will not put it higher because other people think that they are at the top of the League table in that respect. But it is pretty bad and Croydon was the first place to be badly damaged. People want adequate compensation. They cannot get it unless there are sufficient funds, and you will not get sufficient funds in a voluntary scheme with the premium so high. No one who thinks his risks are moderate will join the scheme.
The Government say that they cannot make it compulsory and that the insurance companies are so busy. Start off, if you like, with the fire policies and take them as the basis, so that everybody who has a fire policy has to be compulsorily insured. There is no administrative difficulty about that. Unless the Chancellor and the President of the Board of Trade face this issue they will have trouble over the further proceedings on the Bill. I say that deliberately. I am voicing the opinion of many thousands of people when I say that the Bill is unsatisfactory in this respect. We have done all we can to help the Chancellor and the President, but we will not help them further unless they are prepared to meet us in regard to something which we look upon as essential.

Mr. Lyttelton: An hon. Member, in criticising the Government for their arguments about the limit of £1,000, said that I dealt with the question in a cavalier way. Taking that into account, I propose to deal with this question in a very pedestrian way and I hope that I shall not incur criticism by going fully into the matter. The compulsory insurance of chattels is not a very difficult one to concede in principle. It is obvious that it is

repugnant to the ideas of insurance that the insurer should have to underwrite only the worst of the risks which are available. Again, it is wrong that the people in the remote districts should escape without paying premiums while those in the more dangerous districts should have to pay presumably higher premiums. These principles are not difficult to concede. It is when we come to apply them that the difficulties begin. I desire to review the various suggestions which appeared to my right hon. Friend and myself to be plausible for a compulsory insurance system. I think there are five main alternatives. You can insure upon an ordinary insurance scheme, or upon one based on Schedule A.

Sir H. Williams: But there is no Schedule A in respect of chattels.

Mr. Lyttelton: I said, "based on Schedule A." Or it could be based on the rateable value, which I understand is a suggestion of one hon. Member. It could be based on fire insurance, or based on a poll premium; under the poll arrangement every single individual would have to insure for a notional capital sum. All these proposals have been seriously examined by my right hon. Friend and myself. First, as regards an ordinary insurance policy scheme. There are in the United Kingdom 13,000,000 houses and about 20,000,000 householders, as far as we can judge, the difference between the 13,000,000 and the 20,000,000 representing those who live in flats and tenement buildings or who are tenants or sub-tenants in ~hose buildings.

Sir H. Williams: Surely the statistics about there being 20,000,000 householders are pure unadulterated nonsense. We have the information of the register of electors, and there are nothing like 20.000,000—not more than about 14,000,000.

Mr. Lyttelton: I cannot accept my hon. Friend's figures. I am advised that the figure lies between 13,000,000 and 20,000,000 and is very much nearer the top limit than he thinks.

Sir H. Williams: Sir H. Williams rose—

Sir P. Harris: Let the right hon. Gentleman develop his argument.

Mr. Lyttelton: I am referring to those who have chattels. There are 13,000,000 houses and 20,000,000 people who might be described as having chattels which might fall within the scheme. Nobody suggests that it would be necessary for the Government to write 20,000,000 policies, or even 13,000,000 policies, because there is one thing on which not enough emphasis has been laid, and that is the compensation which the Government are providing for people with dependants with n income under £400 and single persons whose income is under £250. My Department computes that the number of policies which would have to be written under an ordinary compulsory insurance scheme would be from 2,000,000 to 3,000,000. I think it is really a practical impossibility to put upon the already strained staffs the job of writing 2,000,000 to 3,000,000 policies. It is physically impossible. It is on that ground that an ordinary insurance system seems to us to be ruled out. When we are dealing with chattels the question of valuation is extremely difficult. One brick is very much like another brick, but one sofa is not very much like another. Therefore, we rejected that suggestion chiefly on the ground of its being impracticable.
We next examined whether the compulsory scheme could be applied, as was suggested during the Second Reading Debate, on the basis of the Schedule A valuation, that is to say, by fixing a premium which represented some percentage of the Schedule A value. Now Schedule A is in itself only a rough computation of the value of a house. It comprises a certain proportion representing site value. If to that already rough index we were to add another arbitrary index which said that the value of the chattels in a house bore some relation to the Schedule A value of the house itself, we should be piling one rough index on another, and glaring injustices would occur. An hon. Member said we ought all to be equal in these matters. Let us see how this system would work. Take two men with fixed incomes of £2,000 a year. One of them is a married man with a large number of children, and, as I have some reason to know, such a man has to live in a fairly large house, and out of his income has only a certain sum to spend on chattels and personal effects. The other man, with the same income, is, let us say,

a single man, who lives in a flat or small house and has a correspondingly larger sum to spend on personal effects and chattels. Do you think it is carrying out the principle which we wish to carry out, to penalise the man with a large family and small personal effects for the advantage of a single man whose effects are of much greater value?

Major Milner: What happens if the married man is bombed, and is ruined altogether?

Mr. Lyttelton: The next case which I want to examine is that of two brothers whose chattels are of equal value. They have inherited their furniture from their father and have split it between them. One goes to live in the country and the other lives in London. The one in the country insures his chattels for £10 a year, while his brother, who has chattels of equal value, finds it necessary to pay £70 a year to insure them. Apart from starting fratricidal strife between the two brothers, we undermine the principle, which is apparently so dear to everybody here, namely, that those in safer areas should contribute equally with those in danger areas.

Mr. Woodburn: Will there be no anomalies in the right hon. Gentleman's own Bill? It is easy to pick out anomalies.

Mr. Lyttelton: There will certainly be. There are always anomalies. We cannot avoid that, as we are not omnipotent. After that, let us examine the system suggested by the hon. Member himself, based on the rateable value. That system has all the disadvantages of the Schedule A valuation, plus some of its own, because the rateable value as such is affected by the variations in the rate imposed by some thousands of rating authorities.

Mr. Woodburn: I am sorry to interrupt the right hon. Gentleman again, but does he not agree that the rateable value is the one fixed thing which the Government have taken as the basis for the whole of the rest of the Bill? If it is wrong in this case, surely it must be wrong in the remainder of the Bill.

Mr. Lyttelton: That is to say that, because one thing is right, if you multiply it by five, the result is also right. I mean that if you start with a rough and ready basis and then make a rough and ready calculation—that is, basing the


valuation of the chattels on the value of the house—the result is chaos. The rateable value is, of all the alternatives, the least practicable. Let us next look at compulsory insurance based on fire insurance. First of all, fire insurance contains many of the anomalies which I have mentioned about Schedule A. The extent to which a house is insured under the fire-insurance policy is varied, high or low—not so much as under Schedule A—by the condition in which the house is found. There are obvious reasons why that is so. To some extent, fire insurance is based upon a replacement value. Of course, the buildings and so on have a fixed estimate. The first objection is that a fire-insurance valuation contains already some of the anomalies of Schedule A, and the next objection is that the fire insurance premium—

Sir F. Sanderson: Surely we are not discussing fire insurance on buildings.

Mr. Loftus: Are we not discussing insurance on chattels?

Mr. Lyttelton: We are discussing a system of compulsory insurance with an arbitrary rate of premium based on fire insurance values. [HON. MEMBERS: "Chattels."] I did not think that anyone would seriously suggest that the Government would accept a compulsory scheme based on owners' valuation of their chattels. The idea surely is that the premium would be levied in an arbitrary way on the value of the building as determined by fire insurance. The Government could not dig into every comprehensive insurance policy and say, "We do not think that this is Chippendale; this is a fake." The only way in which you could administer such a scheme is to have an arbitrary rate of premium.
Not content with examining these four points, perhaps with some of the enthusiasm of inexperience I approached my right hon. Friend and asked whether we could examine a system of poll insurance by which everyone in the country would be obliged to take out an insurance policy for a certain fixed sum. Indeed, I think that suggestion was made to-day. However, it is open to very grave objections. If the minimum sum is to be very small, say, £50, then those who do not wish to insure are able to escape with a nominal contri-

bution to the general pool. If the sum is put higher, say, £200, there is quite a large class of people who would complain that they had not got chattels worth £200 and would object very strongly to paying a contribution to insure chattels which in fact they did not own. In any event, a limit of £200 would bear very hardly on the poorer classes. It is for these reasons that we objected to the idea of poll insurance.
These reasons are in themselves sufficient to kill the idea of compulsory insurance, but they are not by any means all. The Board of Trade computed that between 2,000,000 and 3,000,000 policies would be involved if we followed the ordinary insurance system, and that means that we would be dealing with only 15 per cent. of the total number of owners of chattels in the country. This is where all the arguments of the hon. Member for South Croydon (Sir H. Williams) are knocked completely sideways. Out of the 15 per cent. you have to take those who live in areas which are considered to be dangerous and who will come in, and that very large class of ordinary provident people who do not regard the moors of Yorkshire as necessarily entirely safe, and who will come in and take out a policy against a contingency which they may regard as remote.
From the total of 15 per cent. which we are dealing with we have to deduct those who anticipate losses and those who are merely provident. That reduces the 15 per cent. to a proportion which I cannot attempt to estimate, but which, in my own mind, I think would be about 5 per cent. of the total number of people owning chattels. The cost of investigating the values for which they desire to be insured would make their premiums a negligible contribution to the whole. On all those grounds, therefore—first of all, the various difficulties of administration and, secondly, the extraordinarily small class of people we are really dealing with—we do not see how we can adopt the suggestions made. I do not conceive it to be part of the Government's policy to try to impose sanctions on properties. What they wish to do is to try and get in as many contributions as they can in order to lighten the burden of those to whom the insurance is a necessity. That, I think, is a perfectly sound prin-


ciple to follow. We are dealing with only 5 per cent. of the total people owing chattels, and their contribution will be negligible. On these grounds, therefore, we do not think that compulsory insurance, as such, is either fair or workable.
But there are other alternatives which may go some way to meet the objections which have been raised to the voluntary principle. My right hon. Friend and myself are examining a system of graduated premiums which will have the effect of bringing in more of those who wish to insure for a smaller sum by allowing them to pay a lower premium, and of raising the limit of £1,500, though I must say probably not to an amount as high as figures suggested in the Amendments submitted by hon. Members. I hope that, in our giving that pledge, hon. Members will feel that we have gone as far as we can. There are very difficult administrative problems in the way of meeting their views further than this.

Sir H. Williams: I beg to move, "That the Chairman do report Progress, and ask leave to sit again."
I do this in order that His Majesty's Government may have an opportunity to reconsider this matter. We have just had a speech from the President of the Board of Trade—

The Chairman: I must ask the hon. Member to explain, as shortly and concisely as he can, why he wishes to make this Motion.

Sir H. Williams: Yes, Sir Dennis. We are at a very difficult stage in this Bill. To many people the chattels scheme is one of the most vital importance. Many of us hold very strong views on this matter, the significance of which is apparently not yet fully appreciated by His Majesty's Government. We have endeavoured in the course of our speeches to indicate why we attach great importance to this. We have had from the President of the Board of Trade a speech which I regard as a non-possumus speech.

The Chairman: I think the hon. Member perhaps did not quite understand the meaning of my interruption. He will no doubt remember that it rests with the Chair to decide whether or not to accept a Motion to report Progress. I regret to say that I do not see at the moment any

reason to accept it, and I do not want the hon. Member to make a speech on the merits of the Bill, or the particular Clause under discussion, but to tell me briefly for what reason he thinks that the Committee should report Progress.

Sir H. Williams: I have not frequently spoken from this Box, but it has been my observation that when someone spoke from the Front Opposition Bench at the end of a Minister's speech and a situation developed which indicated a problem of some difficulty, it was considered an appropriate method of enabling His Majesty's Government to reconsider their view, that a Motion to report Progress, moved from this bench, should be accepted.

The Chairman: It has been frequently stated that in this House every Member has equal rights. In considering this question, I am not making any distinction according to whether the Motion comes from that bench or any other bench.

Sir H. Williams: I appreciate that. I have always, when sitting in other parts of the House, emphasised the importance of equality for all Members. But an Amendment has been moved which the Government, obviously, are imposing absolutely. Many of us are anxious to facilitate the progress of this Bill. No Bill of such magnitude has ever been so much helped by those who are somewhat critical of it, as has this Bill. In those circumstances, when we reach a critical stage on the Bill and there is violent difference of opinion—I have not the slightest hesitation in saying that—when we are within half-an-hour of the end of the Sitting, and the statement of His Majesty's Government is unsatisfactory to many of us, irrespective of the quarter of the House in which we sit, it seems appropriate to take a step which will enable His Majesty's Government to reconsider the Clause before we part with it in Committee. It is because we have reached a stage which may be critical, and because it may be helpful to have Some reconsideration on the part of the Government, that at this moment I wish to move this Motion.

The Chairman: I see no reason whatever, in anything that the hon. Member has said, for accepting that Motion, and I must decline to accept it.

Mr. Silkin: We have listened carefully to the right hon. Gentleman; and may I say, without offence, that, at any rate, this afternoon he has given reasons for rejecting an Amendment, which he did not do this morning. At the beginning, I rather gathered that he accepted the principle of compulsory insurance, and thought it perfectly reasonable, but that he was compelled eventually to reject it on the grounds of expediency and practicability. He finished up by saying that he saw no reasons for imposing sanctions on the improvident—in other words, he saw no reasons for imposing a voluntary scheme. But sanctions are being imposed on the improvident in the first Part of the Bill, because there is a compulsory scheme for the insurance of property and of business effects. In many parts of the country it may be that owners of hereditaments or of business premises would not have wished to insure.
I submit that exactly the same principle applies to the case of the private individual. The people who may not desire to insure because of their geographical position or for other reasons should be compelled to insure in exactly the same way as owners of hereditaments and of business premises. It would not have been necessary for the right hon. Gentleman, in his concluding remarks, to say that he saw no reason why he should impose sanctions on the improvident. Therefore, the Committee will wish to know why there should be a different principle set up in the case of household effects, which, after all, affects a far greater percentage of the population and practically every household, whereas the insurance of hereditaments and business effects apply to relatively few. The Committee will want to know why a different principle should be required in the case of the vast majority of the population as compared with the relatively few owners of hereditaments or of business premises. If the principle is conceded that it is desirable to introduce a compulsory insurance of household effects but that it is not practicable, then the Committee will direct itself to the case made by the right hon. Gentleman.
The Committee was not impressed with the difficulties raised by the right hon. Gentleman. What he really said as regards several of the proposals was that they would bring about inequality and

anomalies. Everyone who has studied this Measure will agree that it is full of anomalies. We cannot help ourselves; we must make the best job we can. It is true that Schedule A as a basis of contribution could be demonstrated to be anomalous in many respects and in many cases, but we accept it as a rough and ready method of assessing the proper amount of contribution. I submit, therefore, that it is equally right to accept another rough and ready method of valuing the amount of furniture on premises. My hon. Friend has put forward a proposal, which, I think, is a rough and ready method of valuating the amount of furniture in a household. Broadly speaking the value of the furniture in a house depends upon the rent and generally upon the number of rooms. As a rough and ready basis—not as a scientific basis admittedly—it is at least as good a test as Schedule A is the test of the value of premises or hereditaments. Alternatively, Schedule A itself could be accepted as a rough and ready method of evaluating the value of the furniture on the premises. Supposing this method is full of anomalies it may well be, as between the two brothers referred to by the right hon. Gentleman, that injustice will be done. Let us admit that. I submit to the Committee that even greater injustice is being done to a far larger number of people by making this insurance voluntary. As between the two kinds of injustice, the injustice of making that section of the population pay which is in the vulnerable areas and the injustice of perhaps making "A" pay more relatively than "B" on the merits, greater injustice is being done by the Bill as it stands than by any other method proposed by hon. Members in this Committee during the discussion.
I hope the right hon. Gentleman will give this matter further consideration. We do not mind anomalies—one more anomaly will not matter—and we will accept such injustices as may exist in assessing the value of furniture. We quite recognise the force of what has been said, namely, that there would be an immense amount of work in order to create a meticulously accurate and fair measure of insurance. Nobody wants to do that at the present time, but I submit that there would be no great amount of work involved in a compulsory scheme which did not have for its highest form of justice and equity such as we would accept in normal


times, but is one which is designed to give insurance at a reasonable rate to those who need it in vulnerable areas and brings in everybody who is the owner of furniture, whether he is in a vulnerable area or not.
In conclusion, may I make this point? I believe that even at the rate of 30s. per cent. which is proposed there would, on the estimate of the number of persons who would come into this scheme, have to be a contribution by the Exchequer, and I maintain that it would ease matters very much from the Exchequer's point of view if, in addition to the premiums of people who would normally come in, there were contributions from people who would normally be outside the scheme. It would case the financial problem, even though they would, at the same time, be able to reduce the contribution from the contributor. As the Bill stands, it may well be that you would not get more than 1,000,000 or so coming into the scheme, whereas the other way there would be 13, 15 or 20 times that number under a compulsory scheme.

Mr. Lyttelton: The point I was making was that 85 per cent. of those who own chattels are already covered by the compensation scheme against the worst changes and chances of life.

Mr. Silkin: That has the effect of simplifying the administrative problem. You would not deal with this at all. Of the 15 per cent. who are left, I believe that a very small number indeed would come into a voluntary scheme. Under a compulsory scheme you would, of course, get the benefit of their contributions. It would have the dual effect of making the scheme more satisfactory financially and more equitable, and I hope the Government have not said the last word on this matter. The proposal put forward, although we have not had the details of it, does not appear at first sight to be particularly attractive.

Sir I. Albery: When I listened to the President of the Board of Trade, I could not help feeling that lie was approaching this problem from an entirely wrong angle. This is not an insurance Bill; it is a War Damage Bill, and its object right through is to levy a certain amount of money from the community and then give compensation to those persons who have been damaged by the war. That is not insurance, and it is no good mixing up

insurance and saying that you cannot carry out a compensation scheme because it does not fit into an insurance policy. Obviously, there would have to be some kind of rough and ready justice. It would not be possible to be very exact. One would not be able to say accurately how much money was to be paid in premiums and how much compensation received in return. I thought that at least two or three of the proposals which my right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade turned down as yardsticks could have been made to work with a little adjustment. What it is desirable to aim at is some rough and ready scheme which will protect the poorest people, who are already to some extent protected under the present proposals, and which will give a measure that has some relation to the value of the property insured in the higher scheme, without going very high—in other words, a general compensation scheme. This might involve certain difficulties, but I cannot see that it would involve writing 13,000,000 insurance policies, or anything of that kind.
In all these cases, when you are considering difficulties, there is only one thing that really matters, and that is the importance of doing what you want to do. If it is sufficiently important, you will find a way of doing it. Before concluding my remarks, I want to consider how important it is. In my opinion, it is vitally important. It is not merely a question of whether this particular part of the War Damage Bill shall be compulsory or not. It raises the whole question of principle. As has been said over an over again in the House, in this war we must all make, not an equal sacrifice, but a sacrifice in proportion to our ability. It has been said over and over again that those who suffer from the war are to have their burdens shared with the rest. I am certain that is the desire of the whole community. In this war we do not want some people to become richer than they were before and others to be broken and bankrupt. That principle ought to apply in the present case. I am not definitely in favour of any particular Amendment, I am not tied to any particular yardstick, or even to the Amendments on the Paper in my name, as to what the amount shall be, but I want to see a real scheme of compensation to which everybody has to subscribe, not as


an insurance—because this is not really an insurance scheme—but as a levy. I want that levy to be equally distributed.

Mr. Pethick-Lawrenee: I listened with great attention to the speech of the President of the Board of Trade. Of course, the right hon. Gentleman can make a very good case to show that whatever proposals are put forward to change the Bill will cause anomalies. I am sure the right hon. Gentleman will appreciate that nobody denies that; but equally, there is no doubt, as was said by my hon. Friend the Member for Peckham (Mr. Silkin), with great force, that the Bill is full of anomalies. We recognise that there can be no scheme, and that there is no scheme in the Government's proposals, that is not full of anomalies.
I was particularly interested in the numerical point made by the President of the Board of Trade, and which he explained in an interruption of my hon. Friend's speech. I thought that in that interruption he made his case rather worse, because, first, I do not think his statement was really in accordance with the facts, and secondly, in so far as it was in accordance with the facts, it minimised his reasons for not changing the Bill. His statement was that of the 13,000,000 to 20,000,000 householders, 85 per cent. are covered by the compensation gratis scheme. That is quite incorrect. They are not covered. All the cover which they receive is under what is described as "essential furniture," and I am advised by people up and down the country that that term is being extremely narrowly construed.
I have been very anxious, quite apart from the question of whether the scheme should be voluntary or compulsory, in the case of people whose chattels may be worth, as they reckon, £100 or £150, that they should have some means whereby the whole of their chattels will be covered. They are not covered under the compensation scheme and there is no pretence that they are. They can obtain perhaps £10, £20 or £30 or £40 at the most, but if they are bombed their £150 worth of chattels will be absolutely gone. Even if the scheme, as it is now, is to survive, and there is to be no compulsion, we have to be told precisely how this new scheme dovetails into existing compensation so

that men with chattels worth £100 can be assured that the whole are covered partly by the compensation scheme and partly by some small premiums they have to pay.
It must be clear to the Government that there is a strong feeling in the Committee against them in this matter. I do not believe that there is much point in voting down the Government on a Bill of this kind. What we want to do is to convince them of the need for some change in the Bill. I suggest that after the Debate they might perhaps think again about the whole matter and think on some new lines. My hon. Friend the Member for North Aberdeen (Mr. Garro Jones) made certain suggestions. I do not think they went far enough, but possibly there may be some way out of the impasse along those lines. It will be very unfair for people living in particularly dangerous areas having to pay these large premiums, and people living in less dangerous areas being able to get away without insuring at all. I think the whole Committee concurs in that, but will the Government accede to us? Cannot they first of all think out a real scheme which covers the whole of the chattels of people who come within the lower income limits, such as the kind of scheme which the President of the Board of Trade alleged to exist, but which I venture to say does not exist? Perhaps there could be some scheme of full compensation or compensation up to a point after a small premium has been paid—I only throw it out as a possibility.
If we can get the whole of that class of people out of this chattels proposal we should reduce the numbers left to a much smaller proportion. We should then he dealing with the comparatively well-to-do people, and we could see what could be done in their case. You might say that people with a certain range of income should pay according to some principle which was not absolutely right, but it might be near enough for practical purposes. We should then be left with a still smaller number. If the Government would say that they would look at a proposal of that kind, and think again, in view of the Debate, then, possibly, those in favour of this compulsory scheme might be willing—I am not saying that they would—to withdraw the scheme, and something could be brought in on the Report stage.

The Chancellor of the Exchequer (Sir Kingsley Wood): I am naturally anxious to meet the Committee, but we must have the Clause to-day. I will, of course, examine any proposal made by the right hon. Gentleman. We might be able to improve the present position as far as concerns the sections that he has indicated. That would get rid of a great deal of the difficulty. I will see whether it is possible to dovetail that with some of the other proposals in the Bill.
I should also like to tell the Committee what has been in my own mind—apart from that section of the community to which the right hon. Gentleman refers—in order to reduce our problem, and make the scheme more attractive from the point of view of the premium. I recognise that the premium proposed may deter a number from taking advantage of the scheme. [An HON. MEMBER: "It is impossible."] What my mind was turning to was whether we could make that side of the scheme more attractive still, and I had in mind three stages by which the premium should be so much up to a certain amount, another premium up to a second amount, and another up to a third amount, so that by these means we should be able to make reasonable arrangements for those who could not afford to pay under the scheme as it stands at present. I also had in mind increasing the amount that could be insured under the scheme. I hope the Committee will accept my assurance that I will examine the proposals that have been made and will endeavour to carry out the indications that I have given, which, I think, would make the scheme considerably more attractive to the great body of the people of the country.

Mr. J. J. Davidson: Does the right hon. Gentleman realise that, if he does make the scheme more atractive and brings in more people, the difficulty outlined by the President of the Board of Trade of dealing with a new scheme will arise?

Sir H. Williams: We are all rejoiced at what the Chancellor has said, hut we ought to think it over between now and to-morrow. I do not see any reason why we should conclude the Debate on the Amendment at this moment, and I am satisfied that we ought not to give him the Clause. The speech of the President

of the Board of Trade was most extraordinary. He was making the plea that no one should insure because of the trouble of writing out a policy. That is undiluted nonsense. We cannot have it compulsory, because there would be 3,000,000 policies to be written out. The House of Commons must not be treated to that kind of argument. He said, "If you make it voluntary, it will bring the 3,000,000 down to 1,000,000." He can find enough clerks to write 1,000,000 policies, but not 3,000,000. That will not do. He says you cannot get valuations. We have to pay premiums on our valuations. There is 30s. worth of argument why I should not value my stuff too high. The other day I decided, having regard to changes in values, that my policies were a little too low, and I wrote to my insurance company. They did not argue with me. They are respectable, and so am I. They respected my valuation.

It being the hour appointed for the interruption of Business, the CHAIRMAN left the Chair to make his report to the House.

Committee report Progress; to sit again upon the next Sitting Day.

SUNDAY ENTERTAINMENTS ACT, 1932.

Resolved,
That the Orders made by the Secretary of State under the Sunday Entertainments Act. 1932, for extending Section one of that Act to the under-mentioned areas:——

(1) the County Borough of Wolverhampton;
(2) the Borough of Barnstaple;
(3) the Borough of Thetford;
(4) the Urban District of Brixham;
(5) the Urban District of Marlow; and
(6) the Urban District of Ware

copies of which were presented to this House on 4th February, be approved."—[Mr. Peake.]

The remaining Orders were read, and postponed.

AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTION.

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House do now adjourn."[Mr. Grimston.]

Mr. De la Bère: I desire to raise the question of agricultural production. If the Minister of Agriculture has


failed, he has failed because he has antagonised the human element throughout the agricultural industry. I am sorry to say what I have to say to-day because I like my right hon. Friend the Minister of Agriculture, but it is not an hon. Member's place to let his likes or dislikes dictate to him what he shall say on the Floor of the House. The Minister of Agriculture has lectured, scolded and patronised. It is no use his doing that unless he provides the material, and by material I mean the man-power and capital to do what is required to produce every ounce of food from the land. My right hon. Friend has not done this. It may be argued that he is not responsible for the recent call-up and that that is the responsibility of the Minister of Labour. It may be argued that he is not responsible for the uneconomic price of pigs and that the Minister of Food is responsible. It may be argued that my right hon. Friend cannot help the niggling way in which the Treasury cavils over every penny for agriculture. It is not right to argue in that way. My right hon. Friend was put in office, not to adorn that office, but to solve the problems which have to be solved. For my right hon. Friend to have told us at five minutes to one o'clock yesterday that he did not want, towards the end of the war, to hear children cry, "I am hungry," and not to have taken every step to see that this did not take place, is unthinkable. He has not done so because, I suppose, he feels he will not have to he in office very long and that in the end he will go on to something better. That kind of thing will not do to-day.
This morning I did not want to he late and I took a taxi-cab. The driver did not seem to know the way to the House of Commons as well as I did. After a slight and friendly altercation I said, "I suppose you are not interested in the House of Commons?" The taxi-driver said, "No, Sir. Down my way there is only one thing that interests us, and that is food." That may sound somewhat irrelevant, but it is not. In every part of the country, in every village, in every town, in every house, the one thing that interests the housewife to-day is food. With war as it is, it is not the slightest use our trying to go on along the old peacetime lines.
Why is nothing done? Nothing is done because it would cut across certain fundamental issues. Those who guide the country refuse to recognise that in wartime you may have to cut right across all fundamental issues. I will instance one only. The banks are still charging 5 per cent. on overdrafts to agricultural borrowers. The amount of money outstanding in February, 1940, was £53,000,000. Why do not the banks reduce that 5 per cent. to 3 per cent.? They would then give approximately £1,000,000 a year as working capital to the farmers. Why is it that the farmer dare not go to his banker? Because he is already too heavily in debt. He must have money and must have men if he is to do anything to-day. The Minister of Agriculture has boasted that we have ploughed up millions of acres. All credit to the farmers; they are the men to take the credit for it. It is a worthy thing to have done, but it is not sufficient of itself. They require men and money, and substitute labour will not do. The Women's Land Army have done good work, and I do not want to belittle them, but they have their limitations, and it is useless to suggest that we can take men from the land and replace them by substitutes.
It is a case for putting more men back on to the land. Before the war thousands of labourers had left to go to the towns to earn better money. Since the war thousands more have gone into the workshops to make munitions. The land is more denuded of labour than it has ever been in the history of the country. Therefore, it is no use the Minister of. Agriculture suggesting that he is providing the most modern of tractors, that he is providing the most modern returns. We may multiply the most modern tractors, we may multiply the most modern forms, but the human element is and will remain the key to the situation, and it is because the Minister of Agriculture has antagonised the human element throughout the country that I say that he has failed and should resign.

Mrs. Tate: When we consider agriculture to-day I do not think we can say that it has altogether failed, but in so far as it has not failed there is not a Member of this House or a farmer or farm worker who would not say that the fact that it has not failed is due, first and foremost, to the farmer and the farm labourer,


and, secondly, to the late Minister of Agriculture, the right hon. and gallant Member for Petersfield (Sir R. Dorman-Smith). To-day the farmer is being (ailed upon to make terrific sacrifices in every direction. He has innumerable difficulties and innumerable irritations, difficulties which many in the country would find almost too great. I agree with the hon. Member for Evesham (Mr. De la Bère) that the Minister's attitude towards farmers has in many instances been exceedingly unfortunate. No one would belittle the tremendous gifts of the present Minister of Agriculture. He has very great mental capacity, very great power of expression, very great forcefulness and a great desire to do well in any Department of which he has charge, but he has not an understanding heart and mind. He has a most unfortunate manner. I think he has not learned that, however much you may be able to bully in private life, you cannot bully the yeoman of England, nor can you bully the soil of this country. You cannot do the impossible.
This war may all too easily be lost on the food front, yet the Minister of Agriculture, only a few short weeks ago, went into the West country and said to the farmers there that they must give up tens of thousands of the workers on their farms. If they really have to do so, it may mean that hundreds of thousands of people will go most woefully short of food. The present Minister of Agriculture has come out in the new light of a staunch supporter of my sex. I do not think there is any truer feminist in this House than myself, but not for a moment would I claim that the average woman can ever compete with the skilled male agricultural worker. She may in certain instances be able to do as good a job as a man, but agriculture is not one of the jobs for which she is most fitted. She will go to the land and she will do her best, but you have no right to ask the farmer to give up his skilled men. I beg of the Minister, whom I sincerely wish well, to think again when he speaks to the farmers, to speak for them and to work for them with greater sympathy and greater understanding and to remember that the farmer and the farm-worker are the aristocrats of this country, the true yeoman stock of England, and that they will not stand for his bullying.

The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture (Mr. T. Williams): Before any more compliments are paid to my right hon. Friend it would be well to say that the attacks which have been made by the hon. Member for Evesham (Mr. De la Bère) and the hon. Lady who has just spoken are merely general attacks and that no specific weakness on the part of my right hon. Friend has been mentioned by either of them.

Sir Henry Morris-Jones: On a point of Order. Is it not the custom, with Debates upon the Adjournment, that the Minister who is to reply waits until the case has been made out?

Mr. Deputy-Speaker (Sir Dennis Herbert): It is the custom of this House that the Member who is called upon by the Chair is the one who shall speak.

Sir H. Morris-Jones: Is it the case that when a Front Bench member of the Government rises, it is the custom to call upon him?

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: Such a point is not one on which the Chair expects or desires to be advised by a Member.

Mr. T. Williams: I hope to give the hon. Member ample time to state his case. I would make this general observation to the hon. Member who first spoke: Whatever he may say or think about my right hon. Friend, it is the fact that, for the last cropping season, my right hon. Friend not only provided all the labour that the farmers required but, by supplementary schemes, the excess of labour that the farmers were willing to employ. My right hon. Friend has also been responsible for providing more machinery than this country has ever known.

Mr. Lipson: Is the Minister referring to skilled and male labour?

Mrs. Tate: Is the Minister sure that the responsibility for that is all upon his right hon. Friend, and not upon the previous Minister?

Mr. Williams: I am sure that all the supplementary schemes from May, 1940, were produced under the régime of my right hon. Friend. [Interruption.] I wish to take none of the well-deserved glory from the predecessor of my right hon. Friend, and I hope it will be understood that nothing I may say in any way


reflects adversely upon my right hon. Friend's precedessor. Although general charges have been made, the only thing that emerged out of them, and the sort of conversation that ensued, were the two questions of labour and credit. If I deal now with those two questions, any other points in the minds of hon. Members can be dealt with on some other occasion.

Mr. De la Bère: Under credit, does my right hon. Friend include capital, as credit and capital are indivisible?

Mr. Williams: I have said something about that matter before. My hon. Friend has a great talent for exaggerating problems that do not exist. With regard to credit, or capital and credit, the problem which he raises so frequently does not exist to-day, whatever may have been the position nine, 12,or 18 months ago. What are the facts? There is no single way of meeting all the financial requirements of farmers because conditions vary from farm to farm and from district to district. Present arrangements include grants for ploughing, draining, ditching, the provision of lime and basic slag, and so forth. But it is recognised that even they are not enough, and the Government have asked the farmers to extend their business. They are still further extending their business. They are not only told to extend their business; they are actually directed to do so. They are told what they have to produce and almost how much to produce. Therefore, it automatically becomes the responsibility of His Majesty's Government to see that credit or capital and such facilities are available in order that farmers may catty out the directions given.
What has happened? Apart from the grants already referred to the Government took steps to provide a guaranteed market for almost everything the farmer produced. They also provided guaranteed prices for everything the farmer produced, not only for the duration of the war, but for one year after, and the big factor with regard to credit or capital, namely, uncertainty, has been completely removed at least for that period. I would remind the hon. Member that the prices are intended to provide for financial accommodation, whether for three, four or five per cent. I do not intend now to enter into a discussion about five per cent. While guaranteed markets and prices have

been provided, my right hon. Friend interviewed representatives of the large banks. They readily undertook to provide liaison officers to go between the farmers and the county war agricultural executive committees, and any farmer with a complaint against a bank for not advancing appropriate credits can complain to his agricultural executive committee, who in turn have access to the banks through the liaison officers.

Mr. De la Bère: He is too heavily engaged.

Mr. Williams: We understand that these arrangements are working very satisfactorily indeed. In addition to the financial accommodation of the banks, there is the Agricultural Requisites Scheme, which was initiated exclusively to deal with cases of difficulty. Under the terms of the Agricultural Requisites Scheme, farmers can obtain fertilisers, feeding-stuffs, machinery, implements, services for ploughing and cultivating. I know that it was a tubercular child that we introduced last February, but since then the Agricultural Requisites Scheme has grown up. It is now a healthy adult, and it is rendering a real contribution to the war. It may interest the hon. Member when I tell him that a large number of persons have taken advantage of the Agricultural Requisites Scheme, and in one case of a farmer who is responsible for a very large area of land an advance under the scheme has touched even five figures, and more and more farmers are taking advantage of that facility. Increasing numbers of small farmers are taking advantage of that scheme to tide them over from harvest to harvest. It seems that the hon. Member is scarcely keeping pace with fast-moving events.
I would like to refer to a point which was mentioned by the hon. Lady the Member for Frome (Mrs. Tate). Recently I addressed two farmers' meetings as wide apart as Hampshire and Yorkshire, where as many as 500 farmers turned up, and I would say to the hon. Member that they were all very intelligent farmers in both counties. They questioned me for between 40 and 50 minutes, and they put some very sensible questions. Of course, there was a certain amount of irritation; what section of the community is free from irritation in 1941, whether on farm, in factory or anywhere else? During 40 or


50 minutes' questioning there was not a solitary question with regard to credit. If the industry was being shipwrecked on the rocks of credit, believe me, I should have heard all about it. The general answer, therefore, to my hon. Friend with regard to capital and credit is this: The farmers' needs are being met partly through the ordinary credit channels, partly from Government loans, partly by Government grants, but perhaps mainly through the mechanism of controlled markets and fixed prices. If, however, the hon. Member or any other hon. Member knows of any specific case in which a farmer is unable to do his job because he cannot obtain accommodation from the banks or through the Agricultural Requisites Scheme, I or my right hon. Friend will he very happy to look into it.

Mr. De la Bère: Is my hon. Friend aware that farmers dare not ask for additional credit owing to the already heavy interest burdens they have to bear; and that my right hon. Friend had over a week's notice of this agricultural Debate on the Adjournment?

Mr. Williams: My hon. Friend evidently has information other than that in my possession. All over the country there is a tendency for farmers' mortgages to decrease rather than increase, because for the first time for some years they are not doing too badly.
With regard to man-power, I am sure we all recognise its importance, especially to agriculture. You cannot provide a skilled agricultural labourer in a training establishment in three months, six months, or even six years. But since the Government have called upon the industry to cultivate every acre, they must, as far as possible in the present circumstances, provide both the machine-power and the man-power so that they will be able to do the job. The Government does appreciate this very grave problem but has to decide between the requirements of the Services, and the production of food, shipping, etc., and secure the best balance they possibly can. I can say to the hon. Member and to the House that the plan for raising the numbers essential for the Fighting Services is still under discussion, and many details are still to be settled. I can, however, say that in relation to the total employed in the industry the men withdrawn will be a very small

proportion indeed. Secondly, the arrangements proposed will guarantee the retention on the farms of every man who is really indispensable; and, thirdly, due regard will be paid to the special circumstances of agriculture as regards seasonal operations and calling-up dates. Service requirements are putting a terrific strain upon every industry in this country. Substitution and training are now universally accepted as being assential, and I both hope and believe that agriculture will be able to play its part in this moment of national crisis.

Mr. Price: I am sure that the last remarks of the Parliamentary Secretary in regard to the calling-up of agricultural labour will give a great deal of satisfaction in the agricultural world, because there is no doubt that although the Minister, as I think the House will agree, has done well in his position, he made one of his worst mistakes in putting grave fear into the minds of farmers up and down the country in that speech of his which seemed to indicate that very heavy inroads would be made on agricultural labour. I think it was quite an inexcusable speech, having regard to what has finally turned out to be the case. No farmer wishes to escape his liability to provide for the Fighting Services what labour he can possibly dispense with.

Mr. T. Williams: Was it not the essence of wisdom for my right hon. Friend to warn the industry, so that they might not lose their skilled men by standing them off for more than a fortnight, and so that they might train such men as they are able to lay their hands upon?

Mr. Price: If that was what the Minister had said, I could not have made any objection; but he was not clear enough, and his speech was interpreted throughout the country as meaning more than that.

Mr. De la Bère: It created a needless feeling of insecurity.

Mr. Price: Quite so. It created a feeling of insecurity, which is only now ended by the speech of my hon. Friend The farmers are all seeing where they can dispense with men who may have to be called up, and where they can use members of the Women's Land Army instead. But this is where all informed agricultural opinion feels so strongly. You cannot use women in highly specialised and key posi-


tions, where men who have spent all their lives in the industry are essential. Particularly in the stock-raising districts, and for milk production, you cannot put people who have been engaged in farming for two or three months to replace men who have been doing such work all their lives. If I had to lose such men off my farm, I should have to give up that sort of agriculture altogether, and turn to something else. I am glad that we now know better what the position is, and I am sure the farmers will do their best to train and use the Women's Land Army where it is at all possible.
In regard to the provision of capital and credit, which was raised by the hon. Member for Evesham (Mr. De la Bère), I do not take the view that there is any great feeling in agriculture that production will be held up on account of insufficiency of credit. I think it is, in the main, true that the greater security resulting from these guaranteed prices will put the industry in a position where it will be able to meet the new requirements; but I think the small men—those in the West Country, for instance, with farms of from 50

to 100 acres—who have been entirely engaged in stock-raising, and who have not for many years engaged in arable production, cannot, without serious difficulties, be expected suddenly to grow potatoes and other things. My hon. Friend says that he has been addressing farmers in various parts of the country and has had no complaints. He has probably been in touch with big farmers.

Mr. T. Williams: And small farmers.

Mr. Price: All I ask is that the Department should keep its ears to the ground for the complaints of these small men, and that they should find out from the war executives in the counties whether the needs of the small men are really being met. These small farmers may have difficulty in finding out the proper means of getting credit facilities and I assistance. That is the weak spot, about which there may be complaints.

It being the hour appointed for the Adjournment of the House. Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER adjourned the House, without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.